


Syndicated Sci-Fi Show

by claudiapriscus



Category: Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s05e08 Changing Channels, Gen, Supernatural Crossover Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-10
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudiapriscus/pseuds/claudiapriscus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slightly AU for "Changing Channels". After getting punted through a number of uncomfortable and humiliating stops along the dial, the boys find themselves unceremoniously dumped on an alien planet in what seems to be some fantasy version of a history channel special- they're poking around some ruins with SG-15, not quite daring to hope that they're being allowed a breather episode. But just as they started to relax, they discover all the joys of a Goa'uld ambush. Lucky for Sam and Dean, the SGC sends in the cavalry. Unfortunately for SG-1, they're it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly AU for "Changing Channels". This originated with the "Kripke Started It" crossover comment fic meme. Expanding it was utter self-indulgence, but it soon took on a life of its own. Thanks goes to tassosss and amanofmydreams for their very good suggestions and advice, and endless gratitude goes to davincis_girl for the gorgeous art, which can be found here: http://davincis-girl.livejournal.com/124858.html

 

**  
**

The narrator was doing it again. Dean wasn't sure he could take any more.

“ _What does it mean when our destiny becomes the destination? Is it in our blood, the very air we breathe, permeating every last facet of our existence? Or is it_ _something_ _more ephemeral, the meaning forever altered by the breaking of each new dawn?”_

Just as Dean was ready to try shooting himself to escape, the lights grew blinding for a second and it all dissolved into something new. _Thank God,_ he thought, before giving their new surroundings a cursory glance- trees, trees, more trees with a few people milling around- and then he turned back to the matter at hand. Namely laying blame where blame was due.

“If we ever get out of this, I'm going to kick your ass,” Dean said to his brother.

Sam scowled at him. “My ass? What crawled up yours, Dean? You're not the one who keeps getting it in the-”

Dean didn't let him finish. “Fifteen _goddamn_ hours of _Heroes,_ Sam, what do you think?”

“What, you think it was my idea? You at least got to beat the crap out of that one guy.”

Dean glowered at him, refusing to be reasonable about this. Sam glared right back. “Whatever. I'm going to take a look around.” He walked away, his shoulders definitely being of the brooding sort.

Goddamn him and his bright ideas. Sam may have suffered more – technically- over the last few shows, but it was no more than he deserved. Sam was officially a danger to himself and others, and more importantly, to Dean in particular. And that just wasn't kosher. Their lives were fucked up to such a degree anymore that he could hardly believe they'd ever done anything as vanilla as dabbling in the occasional grave desecration to pass the time while looking for Dad. Hell, even this getting stuck in TVland thing barely pinged the weirdness radar, relatively speaking. Truth was, sanity was a ledge he was hanging on to by his fingernails. Maybe he'd one day just give in to the urge to laugh himself to death over the cosmic joke that was their lives. It wouldn't take much more, especially after having spent the last fifteen hours watching Sam try to be both emo and evil. So yeah- next time Sam came up with something like, “Hey, why don't we have a little parley with the Trickster,” Dean was going to pop him one and drag his ass to the nearest asylum. That shit was certifiable. Maybe they could get adjacent rooms.

“Winchester! You got a problem?” A wiry and heavily armed soldier with a receding hairline had broken away from the rest of the group and was striding over, stiff-legged and pissed. Dean sneaked a quick look down at his own uniform. Heavily armed, too. Definitely a plus. He looked back up.

“Uh, no- ” Dean took in the man's stance and tone of voice- “Sir.” It didn't sit well with him, and it showed in his tone. The officer gave him a sharp look.

“Good. Then you won't mind me asking why you let a civilian wander off, where he's probably breaking his damn fool leg or getting kidnapped or blasted into an alternate reality or brainwashed or eaten by carnivorous plants?”

“Well- uh, sir- thing is-”

“For god's sake, Captain. I know he's your brother, but he's still a damned _academic_.”

The officer said 'academic' like Bobby said 'demon'.

“This is the exactly why I recommended he not be placed on SG-15 with you. Can you even give me one good reason you're standing around here with your thumb up your ass and not keeping an eye on him?”

Well, this was sounding familiar, but there were limits to how far Dean was willing to play along.

“With all due respect, Sam isn't exactly a helpless civilian. He can take care of himself.”

The man harrumphed, not quite conceding the point, but not exactly tearing him a new one, either.

He gave Dean a far too calculating look, as if trying to decide on some appropriately awful duty to stick him with. A woman who had been futzing with a industrial sized mars-rover looking thing over by the big stone circle came to Dean's rescue. She was wearing the same military outfit, but carried no weapon Dean could see.

“Major Pierce! We've got something,” she shouted, and damn if she didn't sound just like a kid who'd discovered Santa Claus had come in July: ecstatic and incredulous and impatient all in one. “It looks like there may still be something active here- We're picking up some weak fluctuations from just over the ridge.” She sounded ready to charge down it right that second.

“Alright, Dr. Colma. We'll go check it out.” The major suppressed a sigh. He turned to Dean. “For god's sake, go find your brother before he accidentally activates some ancient doodad and gets us all blown to kingdom come. Rendezvous at the Gate in an hour ”

“Uh, Yessir.”

The Major stomped his way back to the others, muttering darkly about babysitting to himself. Dean shrugged and leisurely strolled down the path he'd last seen his brother stomping down. Despite the obvious military focus, the show seemed pretty laid back and peaceful. Dean was determined to enjoy it while it lasted. The sun was casting bright spears of sunshine down through the trees, and the gun- though not one he'd used before- was a comforting weight. It was a warm day, but the trees cast deep and cool shadows. The only unusual thing had been the major's weirdly specific doomsday scenarios...which, now that he was thinking about it, had sounded like they were coming from experience. Crap. He picked up his pace. He cast one backwards glance at the little group before they were lost to the forest and then ventured on, following the trail around a bend.

He hurried around it, wondering how far his brother could have gotten...

...and came to an immediate halt. The woods had come to a sudden end, as if someone had decreed that the trees and ferns could grown this far but no farther, and maybe someone had. He stood at the very edge of the forest, still in the shade of the great trees. But beyond there lay an ocean of tall green grasses swaying in the breeze: a massive plain that went rolling on and on into the distance. The forest had reminded him vaguely of the cool and misty wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, in look if not in climate, but this...this was the Great Plains as they might have been hundreds of years ago, sans buffalo- if someone had plunked the remains of a massive stone skyscraper in the middle of it. He spotted a small figure wandering around the base.

He adjusted his pack to ride more comfortably on his back, and set off down the hill.

Sam didn't seem to notice his approach; he was too engrossed in brushing away clumps of dirt from and engraved stone wall. Granted, Dean had done his best to walk silently as he'd gotten nearer, but Sam was usually better about paying attention to these things.

Dean paused, then darted forward in one fluid movement, intending to knock his brother on his ass. Instead, he found himself sprawling forward as Sam flew upright, blocked his lunge, and swept his feet from under him. Dean tumbled straight into his brother, pinning him to the earth and knocking the wind out of him.

“Ouch,” Dean complained, rolling free.

“Can't...believe....you....fell...for...that.” Sam gasped, still breathless.

“Can't believe you screwed up the leg sweep.”

“What the hell do you have in your pack, anvils?” Sam wheezed.

Dean struggled free of the pack and sat up.

“Might as well be. Damn.” He checked his gun and leaned back against the stone slab. He glanced over at his brother, who had sat up and whose wheezing had begun to trail off. He was nearly as unarmed as the woman earlier, with a knife strapped to his arm and some strange snake-looking weapon in a holster at his side. Wordlessly, Dean unstrapped his thigh holster and handed it over. Sam took it, checked the gun, and put it on.

“Thanks.”

Dean shrugged, then nodded towards the ruins. “Any idea where we are this time? I don't know this one.”

Sam shook his head. “I don't know. Some syndicated thing, maybe, like _Xena,_ or that show _Wormhole X-treme_? Seems pretty straightforward- archaeologists exploring....this.” He flicked a pebble at the wall. “Whatever this is.”

“I don't know, man. No one goes this heavily armed if they aren't expecting trouble.” He tapped the boxy gun hanging over his vest for emphasis.

“Eh, maybe.” Sam's face was a picture of doubt. “Too many civilians, not enough soldiers.”

Dean conceded the point with a shrug. “Where in the hell is this supposed to be, anyway? What's a coastal rainforest doing next to a Midwestern prairie?”

Sam shrugged. “It's television. I was looking at the wall-” he reached back and grabbed a notebook, brushing stray blades of grass off the pages- “ According to this, it's just a simple direct transliteration from the English alphabet, even w, u, v, which is....” he stopped and shook his head. “Well, anyway. It's nonsense in made-up quasi-Latin. They didn't even bother to change the syntax- it's basically still English.”

“So, their production design was sloppy.”

“Or the Trickster is.”

“Yeah, yeah. So what does it say?”

“Something about the halls of Janus – you know, the Roman god of gates-”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I'm not an idiot, Sam. Spare me the lecture. It's a temple?”

“No- I don't think so. There's some history, and some mysticism- the standard prophecy bullshit- but also some sort of great experiment. Maybe that's what we're supposed to be looking for.”

“Maybe we're supposed to go hang out with the rest of the group.”

“What? Why?”

“That seems to be the plan. Join up and then...I dunno. Whatever. But that's got to be better than getting shot again.” He frowned for a second. “Or blown up. Or eaten by a bunch of goddamn daisies,” he continued.

“Wait- what?”

"God if I know.” He rolled his eyes, then shook his head. “Something the CO said. He seemed to think you were getting in trouble.” He gave Sam a pointed look, as if agreeing with the officer's assessment. “He wanted us to stay with the group.”

“Huh.” Sam looked off into the middle distance. Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, “Do you think it was him?”

Dean made a face. “Honestly? I don't know.” He cast a suspicious gaze heavenward and pursed his lips. “If it was, he was playing subtle for once.”

“Yeah, right.” Sam tossed another pebble at the wall, a little more forcefully than last time. It ricocheted with a ping and flew off into the grass.

“Maybe Cas'll show up for more than three damn seconds this time.” Dean didn't sound particularly convinced. He pushed himself up off the ground, stretched, grimaced, and offered a hand up to his brother. “C'mon, we're supposed to be back in-” he looked at his watch, “15 minutes.”

As Sam stood, an odd whine rising steadily in pitch and volume reached them. They turned in slow circles, looking for the source of the noise, which was soon joined by even stranger b-movie death-laser noises. Dean, seeing nothing, frowned at his brother. “What in the hell-”

But Sam wasn't listening. He pointed behind Dean, who turned.

Tiny pebble-looking things darted around the sky like humming birds. Dean realized his mistake as one broke off from the others and drew closer. It was all wrong, like a giant flying metal beetle. A huge gout of fire suddenly exploded only a few yards away, sending dirt and singed grass flying. Sam grabbed his brother and dragged him behind the wall as the strange looking ship fired again.

Dirt and small rocks rained down, stinging just enough to be annoyingly distracting. Dean raised his head and peaked over the wall just in time to see the ship break off and fly back towards the forest. “Well, shit.” Dean said.

Sam dragged one hand over his face and sighed.

* * *

Before the dust had even settled, Dean had scrambled back over the wall and was rummaging around for the abandoned pack with a startling alacrity. Uncovering it, he brusquely tore it open and dumped its contents on the ground. He spared an MRE a scant glance before tossing it over his shoulder. Sam dodged to the side, glaring at the package as it sailed past.

“Dude, seriously.”

Dean paid him no mind. “Duck,” he said absently.

Sam narrowly avoided a second MRE. Tired of being in the line of fire, Sam vaulted over the wall and crouched down near his brother, who was still sorting through the contents of his kit with business-like efficiency. Only the MREs were flung away; everything else was sorted into piles- notebooks, weather gear, miscellaneous survival supplies, candy bars- a _machete_ – it was the kind of gear you had when you were expecting anything and everything.

Having emptied the pack, Dean next started dumping out the contents of his many, many pockets. A pile of spare clips and assorted knives joined a radio, a couple of stun and smoke grenades, and a flashlight. Sam sorted through the knives, looking for one with the right weight and balance when Dean, who hadn't made so much as a sarcastic comment, let out a half-curse, half-reverent exhalation.

“What? What is it?” The knives were forgotten; curiosity carried a far sharper edge.

Dean held up a half-brick of clay. No; not clay-

“C-4.” Dean swallowed. His face was impassive, but Sam knew his brother well enough to tell that he was suppressing the urge to grin like a maniac.

“These guys really take 'be prepared' to a whole new level.” Sam remarked wryly, looking askance at the unassuming-looking brick.

“They're definitely not Boy Scouts,” Dean grinned, and the smile- as quick and bright as a slice of lightning – subtly rearranged his features into something unfamiliar. “Guess it's up to us to save the day, huh?”

“Aren't you a little short for a storm-trooper?” Sam responded half a second later.

“Oh, fuck you very much,” Dean grumbled, turning his attention back to the supplies strewn on the ground, but Sam felt himself relaxing, just a little.

Dean refilled the pack with the kind of swift efficiency that would make a drill sergeant proud, then thrust it at his brother. “Here. Be useful.”

“Hey!”

“Heroes, Sam. Heroes. I don't wanna hear it.” And he kicked his way through the tall grass, obviously pleased with himself, leaving Sam to trail behind. Sam rolled his eyes and swallowed his complaints, shouldering the pack. The bickering was safe and familiar ground, at least.

Even with the spaceships trying to blow everything to hell and back, he felt oddly optimistic. He frowned and gave his head a little shake. They were stuck in a TV show by an extremely capricious deity with a cruel sense of humor. They didn't know where they were, didn't know what they were going up against, and were seriously outgunned...by spaceships. There was nothing in that that implied good times. And then there was the little matter of the apocalypse waiting for them if they did manage to survive.

“Have fun storming the castle,” he muttered to himself.

He picked up his feet and jogged after his brother. The pack jolted into his kidneys with every stride, but he didn't pause. He didn't want to get caught out in the open if one of the ships came back. Dean had apparently had similar thoughts; Sam found him waiting just inside the line of trees bordering the forest.

“How do you want to play this?” Sam swung the pack off and thrust it at his brother. Dean took it with a barely audible grunt and threw it over one shoulder with a shrug.

“Head back to the rendezvous site, hope that the others are there, and play it by ear?” he offered.

“Eh.” It was something. Sam pursed his lips and shrugged with his eyebrows. There was some annoying thing, some half-forgotten thought that suddenly seemed important. He frowned for a second and then said slowly,” What about your radio?”

Dean's puzzlement quickly gave way to comprehension. “Oh- right.” He flailed around for a second like a man fighting off a cloud of bees as he patted his way through his billion and one pockets, finding the right one only after he'd hit all the rest. He fumbled the radio out, and looked down at it. The volume was down to nearly nothing; a crackle of static leaked out, almost too faint to be heard.

Dean spun the volume wheel with his thumb. A voice wavered in and out of the static:

“...St-...eight...-mand...Backup! ….-pond...Win....-ster!...-ead?”

Dean directed an uneasy and sideways glance at his brother.

“Answer it?” Sam suggested.

“...goo-ld...attack! Re-... Ches...Affa!” crackled the radio.

“And say what, exactly?” Dean asked, the question low in his throat.

Sam shrugged. It was Dean's radio, after all.

Dean stared at the radio for a moment, his thumb hovering over the talk button.

“Uh. Winchester, over.”

Sam rolled his eyes, and started to say something but stopped. The voice on the radio was getting harder to hear over the static.

“Jaffa... cap-...shit-” The signal died.

And then they were running.

* * *

Dean started in the lead, but Sam passed him as the trail narrowed, his longer stride giving him the advantage. The forest was alive with the scream of outraged birds, and a thin haze of smoke drifted through the branches. They darted through the trees, flying over rocks and downed branches and instinctively sticking to the deeper pools of shadow. The soft earth muffled their passage. As they rounded the last turn, they slowed and broke off from the path, weaving their way through the branches and ferns, silently easing their way closer to the clearing.

Dean leaned against a tree and peeked around it. He signaled to his brother, who slid around the tree, crouched low to the ground. Sam crawled forward through the ferns until he reached the rise overlooking the clearing. Sam startled, and then caught himself. Dean hurried to join him, creeping as quickly as he could along the forest floor. He looked up briefly, expecting mayhem and murder, because anything that startled Sam at this point would have to be pretty damn epic. But there was nothing spectacular...except- damn-

The stone ring was filled with water. It shone like it had every searchlight in Hollywood trained on its depths. Ripples occasionally cascaded across its surface, as if it caught in an unseen breeze.

And the entire thing was standing on its side, completely vertical.

Dean was distracted by another crackle from the radio. Sam gave him a look that clearly said Dean was an idiot. Dean slapped uselessly at the pocket the thing was in.

“...SGC...repea-...Come in, SG-15.” Now the useless piece of crap was broadcasting loud enough to wake the dead. Or get them killed. Cursing, Dean grabbed the damn thing and shut it off. He looked down at the clearing, but the figures below had apparently not noticed. They stood in a circle around the giant mars-rover thing, preoccupied with the arm that cranked a camera up and around to face them.

It focused on a man wearing some weird dress and a bunch of kinky looking jewelry. He was not tall, at least not in comparison to the soldiers standing on either side of him. He had the lithe build of the athlete and Mediterranean coloring. Kinky Weirdo, as Dean dubbed him, gestured imperiously to the man standing at his right...who looked like a football player with some weird fetishes. The guy had a gold tattoo on his forehead and was wearing a medieval robot suit. Gold-tat brought up another one of those weird snake whatevers and zapped the hell out of the rover. Dean made a mental note: Not useless. Not judging by the curl of smoke rising from the now-still machine, anyway.

“Tauri,” spat the kinky weirdo.

The...magic puddle- or whatever it was- vanished like a popped soap bubble. The men in the ridiculous armor relaxed subtly, their formation breaking enough to let the brothers see behind them.

The rest of the expedition stood huddled in a miserable-looking clump in the middle with several of the armored men pointing their oversized staffs at them. Major Pierce was broadcasting defiance with his hard eyes and stiff stance. Several of the civilians looked like they were one hard look away from major breakdowns, but that was par for the course in Dean's experience. On the other hand, Dr. Colma looked like she was ready to tear out some vital organs with her bare hands. Dean got the feeling she didn't appreciate her geekgasms being interrupted by something as petty as warfare. He was familiar enough with that particular scowl, though on a far less attractive face.

Kinky Weirdo barked an order out a the man to his right, who Dean mentally dubbed “Sergeant Kiss-Ass”. The man stepped forward and demanded something of Major Pierce, who cocked his head to the side and growled, “Go to hell!” ...Or something along those lines, anyway. It was hard to tell from the distance. Sergeant Kiss-Ass apparently didn't take well to this, and kicked the man's legs out from under him while shoving him to the ground. “Kneel before your GOD!” he shouted. That carried loud and clear.

The major glowered up at him, then cut a hard glare at Kinky Weirdo, who murmured something and smirked down at Pierce like a gloating comic book villain. Sergeant Kiss-Ass wheeled around and shot Dr. Colma with his snake ray gun. She cried out and fell to the ground, convulsing. And then she was still, either unconscious or dead.

Dean ground his teeth. Sergeant Kiss-Ass gestured towards the woman again with the weapon, and Pierce paled, but remained steadfast. His stern defiance was undercut, however, by the sounds of one of the civvies messily losing his lunch.

Dean sneaked a glance at his brother, who hadn't so much as twitched. But his eyes had gone flinty and his mouth had set into a line that was entirely their father's. Dean glanced back down at the meadow in time to see Kinky Weirdo and Sergeant Kiss-Ass standing stock still off to the side. Kinky Weirdo hit something on his golden wristband, and then half a dozen rings appeared out of nowhere and collapsed down on them. But instead of ending up a squished pile of blood and guts, they disappeared in a flash of light, along with the rings.

While Dean attempted to process this, a few of Sergeant Kiss-Ass' comrades marched the others over to where Kinky Weirdo had been so recently standing. Dean got to see a repeat of the disappearing ring trick, which still just didn't compute. That left only a few soldiers...or what Dean assumed were soldiers. Unlike the others, he could not see their faces. He guessed they could also be robots or golems or who the hell knows what.

They wore some sort of bull-head as part of their armor. There were only nine of these tin soldiers- and soldiers he was sure they were, at least judging by their relatively imperfect coordination and different gaits. Two took position by the stone ring. The rest loosely lined up in two rows of three, lead by a single man without a bull-head. At his signal, they started clanking their way up the hill. To Dean's practiced eye, they were obviously the raw recruits. They did not move well together, their metal-clad arms occasionally clanging together as elbows knocked into each other and strides faltered.

Dean tapped Sam on the shoulder. He gestured back at the forest behind them. Sam nodded and obligingly crept backwards far enough sit up without giving his position away. Dean did the same, and they crouched in the shade of an especially expansive tree, hidden from sight by the thick tangle of ferns and brush.

They waited there until the group clanked their way past them and down the path a ways before rising and shadowing after them. When they reached the great plains, they hung back, following them only with their eyes.

“What do you think?” Dean asked. “Die Hard?”

“We don't know where they took everyone. I'm thinking more like the bank.”

“Could be tricky. We don't even know who the hell they're supposed to be. These guys aren't exactly SWAT.”

“Exactly, Dean- look at them.”

Down the hill, one of the tin men startled when a bird erupted from the brush. He swung his big staff around, nearly tripping the man next to him.

“Huh.” Dean considered it. “This could work. We'll need to split them up.”

“Set up a couple of the smoke grenades?” Sam offered.

“Too obvious-” Dean retorted.

“-not at the same time, obviously.”

“Yeah, but-”

“You just want to blow something up.”

Dean's cheek twitched. It may have been closer to the truth than he was ever going to admit.

“I'm just saying, let's make it look serious,” he said at last. “We could rig something up with one of the spare clips and some tinder- it'd sound like someone was going friggin' postal. Set one of the smoke grenades to go off first, then....catch their attention somehow- jump out and say boo, I don't know- hightail it outta there, and have the clip go off to lead 'em off our trail.”

“Great, except for the part where we accidentally set the forest on fire.”

“That's a risk with the smoke grenades anyway, genius,” Dean said stubbornly.

Sam breathed out forcefully through his nose, his nostrils flaring. “Yeah, well- not as much of one.”

“Dude- I don't know if you noticed, but it's not like we have all day here, Sam. They're gonna come back. Fuck the forest anyway. It's not real."

Sam opened his mouth, but instead of the expected comeback, he just...stopped, his mouth still hanging open. Then he said, “We could, you know.”

Dean waited.

“Set the forest on fire. Or- you know- a tree. Something. They're searching for something, right?”

Dean shrugged indifferently. “Probably. So now you're not going all Smokey the Bear?”

“We're usually in populated areas,” he said defensively. “But here? Who cares. But _they're_ looking for something- they're not going to let it go unchecked.”

Dean nodded along, looking a little lost in thought himself. He looked up. “They've got spaceships,” he said finally.

“They're still doing the searching on foot.”

Dean shook his head. “Not what I meant. You're right. Thing is, we're not going to be hanging around, though burning down the forest around our ears is still probably a bad idea. We've got damsels to save. And a hard-assed SOB. And a couple of geeks.” He blinked and, after a second, remembered his original point. “And as far as I can tell we're not going to find them- or the bad guy- here.”

“What was the deal with that guy anyway?”

“Hell if I know. He's like a Rocky Horror Picture Show reject or something.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at the comparison, and then shrugged.

The little figures down the hill had managed to complete a circuit of the remains of the tower and now were awkwardly getting back into formation for the walk back.

“I think we need to keep this simple,” Dean said, his eyes fixed on the soldiers below.

Sam pinched his nose. “You had a flare gun somewhere in there, didn't you?”

“Uh, yeah-“ Dean patted his pockets again.

“What if we go back to the clearing, set off the flare, and wait for them to come to us?”

Dean stared off vaguely into the distance. “Just ambush them?”

“We can be creative.”

“Oh, no doubt about that, Sam, but I'm getting really tired of getting my ass shot off. One surgery was enough. The last three were just excessive.”

“They'll probably have lousy aim.”

Dean gave him an even look. “Awesome. When I get hit, it'll be a comfort to know it was an accident. I've got a better idea.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Kel'tar of Perit'ak was not having a good day.

He knew better than to gamble with Lerac. Lerac's friendly little games always resulted in something unpleasant- for Kel'tar. Like today. Even now, Lerac was probably laughing it up back on the ship, lounging around while Kel'tar's subordinates scurried to and fro, busy with inventory.

All while Kel'tar was stuck in the roasting heat with the sorriest, stupidest patrol of young warriors to ever be graced with the name Jaffa. His great-grandfather, First Prime to Bastet, would have slaughtered the lot of them as an insult to their God. Truly, it had been a golden age, he thought glumly, watching as one of his warriors nearly tripped another with an ill-timed swing of his staff.

“Fool! See how you honor your God!” he bellowed, though his heart wasn't in it. The damned idiots didn't have the sense to lower their helms, as if there was anyone here to impress. They were like children. Some of them in fact _were_ children, but he wasn't going to dwell on it. And in any case, any real warrior would have lowered the hood as to gain the benefit of his peripheral vision. But they- oh, they thought they looked so fine in their armor. He could hardly believe he had ever been that young. And he had surely never been as stupid.

Kel'tar shifted uncomfortably in his armor. It was too hot to linger. He was eager to get this pointless search over with and return to the cool shade of the trees.

If he were a younger man, he might run off and join the rebel Jaffa, who seemed to siphoning away the best and the brightest. There at least, one could find the glory that was so sorely lacking in the service of such a sorry lot of Gods as they had today. Of course, if he were still a young man, he'd probably feel honor-bound to remove his own head, rather than live as a shol'va. Such drama and passion was the purview of the young. Age, he believed, brought with it a certain pragmatism sorely lacking in youth.

He shook his head to clear it, to focus once again on the matter at hand. They had completed their circuit of the ruin at last. Hopefully they could make it up the hill without one of them tripping, accidentally firing his staff, and injuring the rest. He sighed.

No sooner did they start the trek back up the hill when a brilliant red light burst above the trees. From the look of it, it was somewhere near the clearing of the Chappa'ai.

Maybe a run would do the fools good. He glanced over at them. They weren't even in formation.

He glared at them.

“Jaffa, Kree!” They shuffled around but did very little else. Kel'tar was briefly tempted to shoot the ground at their feet to motivate them.

“Run, you fools!”

They took off at a shuffling march. Kel'tar briefly pressed one armored fist against his forehead.

He was going to visit a suitable revenge upon Lerac for this.

He jogged after his wayward troops. They even found themselves in something approaching a halfway decent marching rhythm. Kel'tar found himself grudgingly impressed. Not one had yet managed to trip over his own feet. It was an improvement from the last time he had gotten stuck with this group.

After cresting the hill and entering into the shaded bliss of the trees, Kel'tar allowed himself a sigh of relief.

It was short lived.

A shadow shifted, just off the trail. Kel'tar glanced over, but couldn't see anything, nor did he hear the tell-tale rustle of movement. Before he could dismiss it as just a small creature moving through the undergrowth, his patrol startled and fell into a loose attack form, circling around a metallic cylinder.

There was a great clanking as they all shuffled around, just short of shoving as they all tried to get a better look at the hissing thing. At least half of them lowered their helms, which was a start, Kel'tar thought glumly.

Just as suddenly, the canister loosed a huge bout of dense and colored smoke. They would soon all be blinded, and none of the young idiots had the sense to react accordingly. Before he could berate them for their idiocy, he heard a soft thump. Dimly, through the smoke, he could see another small canister.

It _wasn't_ smoking.

Several choice phrases popped into his head, but he was given no chance to utter them.

BANG.

 _No fool like an old fool_ , he thought, and then it all went dark.

* * *

Dean tore through the forest like all the demons in hell were chasing him, figuratively speaking. It wasn't some mad, uncoordinated dash for him. Oh no. Precision and skill all the way. He and Sam had gotten a lot of practice with the real deal over the years and especially of late. Been there, done that, ruined plenty of t-shirts. These guys were chumps in comparison. All he'd had to do was cut a path that went right through them and hightail it out of there, yelling his lungs out. Just like that and the ones still standing after the stun grenade were on him like a particularly stupid pack of dogs. Whoever did their recruiting was either a double agent or monumentally incompetent.

He continued yelling, just to make sure they didn't give up the chase too soon. He'd gone with 'Tarzan' for a little variety. After running them around in half a dozen circles, he stopped yelling and quietly lost their trail. The poor bastards would be lucky if they could find their way back by dark.

He crouched at the foot of a tree and lurked behind an overly large grove of ferns until he was certain they'd gone far enough in the wrong direction not to notice him. Then he slipped back to the original trail to meet up with his brother.

He found Sam unsuccessfully trying to wrestle one of the heavier-set soldiers off the path. Sam stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He looked up and saw Dean.

“Hey, little help here?”

Dean stepped over the other body lying prone on the ground and grabbed the soldier's feet. Sam grabbed him under the arms and together they hustled him off the path.

“Shit, this dude needs to cut down on the Twinkies already,” Dean said as they carried the guy deeper into the forest. They dumped the guy unceremoniously on the ground next to his buddy. Sam had literally just dragged that one over, judging from the faint marks still visible on the ground.

“The armor alone must weight a ton,” Sam said, shaking his head. “It's stupid.”

“Yeah, well, judging by their comrades, fighting smart is not a high priority for these guys.”

Sam squatted next to the older man and began looking for some sort of catch on the armor as Dean stood guard. “They're the minions, I guess.”

“Minions? As in “you have failed me for the last time!” minions?”

“It fits.” Sam prodded at a promising looking swivel in the armor. Nothing happened.

 _Well,_ Dean mentally amended, _nothing useful happened,_ as the soldier let loose a grating, buzz-saw snore. _Bzzzzzzit_.

“I never get those guys,” Dean said after a second. He could swear he'd just seen the old guy twitch at the sound of the snoring.

“They exist to get knocked around by the good guys. What's there to get?” Sam let out a hiss of dismay as his prodding only resulted in the soldier's bull-head reappearing. The soldier's snores were dampened, if not completely diminished. The bull-head gave them an interesting resonance.

Dean kept an eye on the old guy, and said thoughtfully, “Oh, you know. Working for the big bad can't be good for morale. He sends 'em off to be slaughtered, he kills them for bringing bad news, he laughs evilly and gets them to sacrifice themselves to save his cowardly ass.”

 _Hmm,_ he thought, _definitely a twitch._

Sam looked up at him, having caught something in his tone. Dean knew what he was thinking- he was wondering where Dean was going with all this. Dean twitched his head ever so slightly at the old guy.

He could practically see the gears turning in Sam's head. Sam nodded and then went back to fidgeting with the armor, at least superficially. His posture was loose and alert, ready for action.

“It just screams stupid. No one in their right mind would want to work for a heartless, treacherous, bastard, and I just don't get it.” he continued, then paused. “Why don't you fill us in, old man?”

The older soldier did not move.

“Come on, might as well tell us. We know you're playing.”

Still nothing.

“Or we could shoot you,” Dean said, tired of the game.

That got a reaction. A pair of brown eyes glared up at him.

“Good. Here's the deal. We're robbing you.”

The old man stiffened.

“So start stripping,” Dean drawled. He made a face. Sam rolled his eyes.

The man made an effort to sit up. “I have heard the Tauri have no honor,” he said- practically growled. “You have even less. Even your own people must hate you.”

“Guilty as charged,” Dean said, gesturing with his gun, “Nice and easy does it.”

The old soldier glared, but he undid his armor, which came free with a mechanical whirr. The soldier shook himself free of it and kicked it towards Dean. Sam pulled his gun and edged closer to the armor, kicking it out and away. The man was dressed only in the thin tunic he'd had under the armor. Dean could see the shadows of some horrific scarring on the man's stomach, but he tried not to get distracted. Sam edged away before stooping down and grabbing the armor.

If looks could kill, both of them would be crispy critters by this point. “My lord Mithras will have both your heads! Surrender now and perhaps he will make it a merciful death,” the old solider said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Of course he will. Peachy.”

The old man's eyes darkened. “I am called Kel'tar of Perit'ak, and I have been serving under my God since before your father was born, insolent boy. Were you to face me on the field, I would relish teaching you to respect your elders.”

“We'll pass on the etiquette lesson,” Dean said, his voice hard. “You're not exactly Miss Manners. But how 'bout you tell us about your Lord-- Mithras?”

“You are not worthy to speak his name-” a snore ( _bzzzzzzit_ ) cut through his diatribe. “His wrath will rain heavily down upon you,” he finished severely, but his heart was no longer seemed to be in it.

“Oh, we're worthy, alright. So he's the wrathful type? He the kinky dude in the dress?”

“Are you questioning the choices of a god?”

“When it comes to guys in dresses, yes.”

“He is fearsome in all guises,” Kel'tar offered, though without much conviction.

Dean snorted. “Right. I'll take that as a yes, then.”

Sam leaned closer to Kel'tar, and fixed him with earnest eyes. “Where did he take the others? To your ship?”

“Death could not compel me to betray my God!” Kel'tar said with just a little bit too much firmness after a little too much hesitation.

“Oh, really,” Dean said skeptically, giving the old man a calculating look. “You know, there's a

saying-”

“I do not care for any such Tauri nonsense,” their prisoner declared.

Dean ignored him. “- About how there is no such thing as an old bold soldier. Now substitute 'stupid' for 'bold' and I think we're getting warmer. No one as stupid as the recruits out there survive long under a megalomaniac. I'm guessing you're not as stupid as you look, so you know we're not going to kill you.”

Sam shot him a look that clearly said 'what the hell', but Dean continued.

“Don't get me wrong. We will shoot you. But I'm thinking that the reason you're so bold about dying here is because you're pretty sure that it's not going to go down that way, because you're not going to do anything stupid, and we're not homicidal maniacs.”

Kel'tar clearly thought Dean had lost his marbles, his expression hovering somewhere between frustration and apprehension.

“So here's the deal. You tell us what we want to know, and we'll knock you out and tie you up – just enough to keep you busy for a while. Or...” he let it hang.

Kel'tar blinked and visibly struggled not to take the bait.

Dean continued without him. “Or, and how about this – we'll do that anyway, but when we're caught, we'll tell your divine lord and master” - the last said sarcastically- “That you're the mole that helped us.”

Kel'tar sputtered. “My lord would never trust the word of a Tauri spy over the word of his loyal servant.”

“Really?” Sam chimed in. He'd stood up again at some point. “He'd believe you, and just let it go?'

Kel'tar deflated.

Sam stepped up the good-cop. “We don't need to know anything sensitive. Just stuff anyone would know. You don't have to worry about it. It's not really helping us.”

With something approaching hope, the old man said, “And most surely you will be defeated. You will not prevail.”

“Of course. It's practically certain death.” Sam agreed. Dean nodded along.

“So it really won't hurt to tell us how very screwed we are, would it? All the stronger, smarter people who have gone against him and lost? You might actually convince us to surrender.”

Dean looked askance at his brother. He was laying it on thick- but gears were apparently turning in the old soldier's head.

Kel'tar stared off into space, like he was mentally adding up his chances.

“Death awaits those who defy Lord Mithras, ” he intoned. “Tok'ra scum once attempted to infiltrate his ranks, but he was not fooled by their cowardly tricks. He found the imposter and slew him with his own hand. And put his head on a pike,” he added with some relish. “And that was but recently. He has, in his time, lead his armies to victory over....many villages, and laid waste to their lands.”

“Villages? He's got a spaceship, and he's conquered villages?” Dean nearly laughed.

Sam glared at him, as if to say _not helping._

But Kel'tar did not seem offended. “They were very valuable villages,” he offered, without passion. “Lord Anubis insisted it would bring much glory to...uh...their alliance.”

“Lord Anubis, he insist things often?”

The old man shrugged. “The Gods do as they will.” He caught Dean's expression. “Yes,” he quickly continued, “My lord does often receive his council.”

“Right,” Dean drawled. “So what's he done with our...friends?”

A stubborn line crept across the old soldier's face. Dean sighed, exasperated, and rephrased. “Fine. What horrors await us when we are inevitably captured?”

“When I was but a boy, it was said that he preferred slow and agonizing dismemberment. The rending of limbs and tearing of flesh, followed by the brand, and then the sarcophagus, followed by disemboweling-”

“Original,” Dean said, his voice flat.

“Yes. Those were better days,” the old man said wistfully.

“So,” Sam broke in, “Not so much on the disemboweling today?”

The old man let out a grunt that sounded a lot like a harrumph. “My lord allied himself with other, lesser, gods. They – he does not-”

“Yeah, alright, ok, we get it,” Dean interrupted, tired of the old man's attempts to avoid admitting that his boss was just somebody else's bitch. “But what- I mean, what will he do to us?”

“He will turn you over for interrogation to Lord Anubis,” the old man said with some glee, like he'd just played his trump card.

His face fell when he realized neither brother reacted.

“It will be terrible! He is dread incarnate- He will pry the secrets of your world from your very mind!”

When he still didn't get the response he expected, he continued a little bit more desperately, “his very countenance is said to bring death to those who gaze upon it!”

“How...uh...interesting,” Dean said.

“Definitely terrifying,” Sam added, seeking to placate the old soldier.

Kel'tar stared at them, disgusted, and then shot a contemptuous look at the other soldier, still snoring away.

“Young men are all fools.”

“Uh-huh. We don't really have time for this. Sam?” He looked over at his brother, who had been fiddling with the armor.

“I think I've figured it out.”

“Great.” He readjusted his grip on the gun and brought it up. “Okay then. We're gonna need to cut this short. We're really scared and all, but surrendering just isn't on the menu today. Good try though,” he said with just enough insincerity.

Kel'tar turned an apoplectic-looking shade of purple at Dean's tone. He said a few words in a language neither brother recognized, but the meaning was clear. He did not get very far into his diatribe before Sam figured out how to cock the snake-gun and zapped him. Blue light danced over the old man's body. He twitched and then fell over.

“Huh. That was kind of anti-climatic.”

Sam shrugged. “Good news or bad news?”

“There's good news?”

“Less bad news, anyway. I think I know how to get the armor on.”

“What's the bad news?”

“We're not going to be able to get the other one unless the guy wakes up.”

They both looked at the other soldier, who was still snoring soundly.

“There's gotta be a way, Sam. For field medicine if nothing else.”

“You'd think so. But if there is, I can't find it.” He looked ruefully down at the armor.

“Crap!” Dean pushed two knuckles into his temple. “I don't like it. We don't know how it'll play out.”

“Sure we do,” Sam, “we'll go in like action heroes. Save the day, like you said earlier.”

Dean frowned and shook his head. “I can't put my finger on it, but there's something wrong here, man, don't you think?”

“There's a contemporary American expedition poking around improbable ruins on another planet. Fighting evil Roman gods with spaceships. Where they speak English. I think it's fair to say that there's a lot that's wrong here, Dean. Not the least of which is that we're stuck in a damn TV show.”

“No – there's something...I dunno. Different. Off. Whatever.” He glanced down at the soldiers. “Anyway, I guess it's not like we've got a lot of choice at this point.”

“Probably not,” Sam agreed. He looked down at the soldier, then started digging around in his own pockets. He pulled out a sharpie and brandished it triumphantly.

“Oh no,” Dean said, catching where Sam was going with that. “Why do I have to be the guard?”

“The old man's your height, Dean,” Sam said, advancing on his brother.

Dean shied away as much as it was possible without actually staging a full-scale retreat. “Yeah, but head-tattoos are far more your look than mine. Trust me on this one.”

“No getting out of it. Think of it as revenge for that time in Dayton.” Sam uncapped the marker and stepped forward.

“I am so killing that fucking Trickster.”

“So far we're 0 for 3 on that one,” Sam remarked, carefully copying the stylized bull's horns on to Dean's forehead.

“It only needs to stick once,” Dean said when Sam was done. He walked over to the armor and struggled into it, and with Sam's help, managed to get it to work.

“Goddamn, this stuff is heavy,” he complained. “Why the fuck do they wear this crap?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Because it looks cool.”

“Well it sucks.” Dean clanked around for a minute, adjusting to the way the armor messed with his balance and getting familiar with its range of motion. He then practiced lowering and raising and bull's-head helmet. It was strangely satisfying. He couldn't see worth a damn when it was up, but he had to admit, it was awesome just for the way it appeared and disappeared. He wondered how it worked- it looked and sounded mechanical, but in operation, it was something else entirely.

“Dean,” said Sam, his irritation and impatience snapping Dean's attention back to reality. Or what was currently passing for it.

“Uh, right. Your turn.” Dean looked around for the rest of his kit.

“Uh, Dean, I can't wear the other armor,” Sam said, patiently even, as if humoring his mentally deficient brother. (“Just kick him if he starts drooling on the furniture, dear...”)

“Not what I meant,” Dean snapped. He reached down and grabbed his backpack. “We're not going in there half-assed. We need to be sneaky.” He already had plans for most of the goodies in his pack.

“This is going to involve a lot of uncomfortable hidden weapons, isn't it?” Sam asked with tired resignation.

“You bet your ass it is.” Dean rummaged through his supplies, setting a few off to the side.

“That's what I'm afraid of.”

“Suck it up.” Dean focused on sorting through the weapons. It had been a long....day. Days? Whatever. If they ever got out of this, he was going to sleep for a week, then find a way to spend an entire day without coming within thirty feet of his brother.

He glanced over two knives before setting one in the pile and the other back in the bag.

Sam grumbled something under his breath.

Dean frowned at his brother than tossed the block of C-4 at him. Sam caught it and gave Dean an incredulous look. Before he could say anything, Dean cut him off. “Shut up and shove it...somewhere.”

“You're kidding, right?”

Dean just raised an eyebrow.

“You've got to be kidding.” A note of desperation had crept into his tone.

Dean just smirked. Sam's face fell.

“You're...not kidding, are you?”

“Hey, you never know when a stable plastic explosive will come in handy,” Dean quipped. He had to remember to catch that particular show if they survived this. Ok, so the main character had shot him. But he had to admit, the guy had style.

* * *

The Trickster just had to introduce Dean to Burn Notice, Sam mused. It was not a grateful thought. There were many things that Sam wasn't going to be forgiving any time soon- hell, he had a list a mile long of all the shitty things the asshole had ever put him (them) through. This hardly made the list, but when there was finally a reckoning....oh. Sam was going to remember it as just one of many reasons the bastard deserved it.

There was...chafing.

Goddamn C-4. Stable plastic explosive, Sam's ass. And it was his on the line, after all.

It had only been a few minutes since they'd left their captives, as close to hogtied as they could get them with improvised restraints. They'd be able to get out of them eventually, but hopefully it would buy them enough time to...do whatever it was they needed to do.

The path back to the giant ring seemed a lot longer when he was forced to walk it at a shuffling pace, and it was giving his brain time to start coming up with second thoughts. And third thoughts, and fourth thoughts.

But no real alternatives. He had no desire to kill time by playing hide-and-seek with the morons back in the woods. And even if it were just a TV show, habits were hard to break. People being threatened by the supernatural? Coming to the rescue was more than habit- it was practically ingrained at a genetic level. Even when it was something as bizarre as gods with spaceships.

He knew what his dad would say, were he here. You do the job in front of you. Get it done, and deal with everything else later. Of course, that had never been in reference to being trapped in fictional worlds, but Sam figured his father would have still held it true.

It was funny how often John Winchester occupied his thoughts, these days. How much he had railed against him, and how much now he took comfort in his wisdom. Of course, their childhood was still all kinds of fucked up. Hell, their father was all kinds of fucked up. But so were their lives, and there was no escaping that. Just look at the current situation – prime example. Sam figured it balanced out in the end. That didn't stop it from being all kinds of annoying.

Sam was struggling not to let his irritation show every time his brother prodded him with the staff he'd stolen from an unconscious soldier. Spinning around and grabbing it away from him would kind of blow their cover, and they really needed the guys standing guard to beam them up to the mothership or whatever.

So he tried to look suitably cowed as his brother bullshitted his way through the conversation. He expected he looked more constipated than anything. It really was inexplicable, his brother's talent for fooling people into making them think he fit in. It came out of nowhere, sometimes. And it really bugged him, although he wouldn't admit it. Dean hardly ever cared to fit in, never seemed to care much what anyone thought. But when he did decide to, people just accepted him as one of their own. And he always seemed comfortable with that. There was a time Sam would have seriously considered maiming or murder to gain that ease. That boat had long since sailed- it hardly mattered anymore, he supposed.

Especially now. Dean had successfully convinced the guard that all was legit and kosher. Sam tried not to wince as the rings collapsed down on them. There was a flash of light-

And then they were in... a store room. Not what he'd call dramatic. Though the interior design was...interesting, to say the least.

“Wow, tacky,” his brother commented.

He wasn't wrong. There were sloping gold walls and panels and panels of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and really...what the fuck?

“Roman gods...flying around in Egyptian spaceships. What part of this makes sense?” It was a rhetorical question. Sam knew the answer: exactly none of it, up and including the fact that a demi-god had plunked them into show after show. “Seriously, man, the Trickster must be losing it.”

“Yeah.” Dean was looking thoughtful again. “Right.”

“What- you disagree? Come on.”

“No- I do, it's just....” he trailed off, then shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind. So what do you think? Bad guy or civilians?”

Sam shrugged. “Civilians?”

Dean nodded. “Works for me. Gives us an excuse to wander around and case the place first.”

“Alright, but I'm tired of playing prisoner,” Sam said pointedly.

“Ok, so we'll mug some sucker along the way. Let's get moving.” Dean rolled his shoulders, or attempted to. The armor clanked. He shifted his weight.

“Damn, this is uncomfortable.”

“Dude, don't even.” Sam pulled at the knife handle that was digging its way into his kidney. “Don't even start.”

Dean rolled his eyes. His gaze ended up on the doors, and his face fell.

“Uh- question. You got any ideas on how to get those open?”

Sam turned to look at the doors. He could feel his own lips twisting into some unhappy shape.

“Yeah,” his brother said. “Me either.”

* * *

It only took a hundred tries (and a lot of swearing) to find the right combination.

“This is so not how I pictured charging to the rescue, Sam,” Dean said.

“Shut up, you're gonna make me lose my place,” Sam answered.

At long last, the doors slid open with a dramatic, scraping ring and they were able to make a triumphant charge into...a dull, empty, and still Egyptian-themed corridor.

They looked either way down the corridor. It was a long passage that ended at either side in right-angled turns.

“So...I'm guessing there's not going to be a map with 'you are here' around,” Sam said.

Dean peered at the walls, which were covered in hieroglyphs just as the storage room had been. “Damn.” He shook his head and shrugged.

Footsteps echoed from around one of the corners.

Sam looked at his brother, who was looking at him.

“Let's go-” Sam started.

“Yeah, thataway,” Dean finished, glancing down passage. Sam legged it down the hall, and Dean jogged after him, each step giving off a clank of its own.

Halfway down the next corridor, it branched out. They hurried down one after another at random, hoping to get enough distance from their not-yet-a-pursuer to either work out an ambush or lose him.

The footsteps did not follow them, so that was good. Sam was pretty sure he could trace their way back to the original storage room, but other than that, they were lost. The place was a maze, and they still had no idea how to find anything or anyone.

The ship was huge and surprisingly empty, given its size. Which was to their benefit, but made it that less likely that they were just going to blunder into the captives by chance.

They rounded another corner. Sam spotted the guard half a second before Dean did, and froze. Dean hurriedly pulled the staff up into a menacing position. The guard, alerted by the sound of Dean's clanking steps, looked over and startled into an aggressive stance. He challenged them in the same strange language the old man had sworn in- it sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball to Sam's ear, but the meaning was clear: _“What the hell do you think you're doing?”_

Sam hunched his shoulders and tried to look nervous and intimidated. It was harder than he expected; he had a lot of practice trying to look harmless, but now, the mask kept slipping. He wanted the release of being able to pound the Trickster or the nearest handy substitute (oh, like some self-important dick in stupid armor) into the ground. Something of this must have shown on his face; the guard's gaze was decidedly suspicious and entirely wary.

Dean, apparently trying to salvage the situation, tried for bored in his answer, but Sam could hear the tension underneath. “I'm taking this prisoner back to the cells.”

“Fool! The prisoners are kept three levels down.” He stepped forward, than froze. “You are not Jaffa.” And tightened his grip on his staff-

Sam raised the snake-gun and held it level to the man's head before he could even begin to swing the staff around.

“Don't move,” Sam said.

“We're robbing you,” Dean added. The soldier was about Sam's height, after all. Unfortunately, their newest...prisoner? Victim? Mugee? Whatever, he was far less cooperative than the old man in the forest.

“I would die before I betray my God, Tauri dog!”

“We're not asking you to,” Dean answered. He was growing impatient. “Just take off your damn armor.”

“I will not aid you,” the guard spat.

“Seriously, what is with you guys?” Dean began, but he was interrupted as the guard surged forward, either hoping to catch them off guard or to perform Suicide-by-Winchester. Maybe he didn't care either way.

Blue lightning danced over the guard's body, but it wasn't from Sam's gun. A tenth of a second later, Sam's shot zapped him as well. He twitched and fell over. Sam looked up to see an unfamiliar man wielding another of the snake-guns. He was dressed like the civilian members of the expedition, though he had the alert readiness of a soldier. Not to mention the fact that he'd beaten Sam to the trigger. That was unusual. Slow hunters were dead hunters, his father had often said, and despite their track record on the 'dead' part, he knew that he and Dean were among the best.

So he was impressed, albeit grudgingly. Despite their extensive arsenal and weapons training, Sam had never had the opportunity to get used to the particularities of an alien ray-gun. That was probably it.

“Talking them over only seems to work for Colonel O'Neill,” the man said mildly, staring down at the unconscious guard. “And Bra'tak,” he added after a second. “What were you trying to do anyway? It sounded like you were mugging him.” He said it like it were a joke. _If his tone got anymore, 'I'm deeply skeptical but I'm humoring you and I want you to know i_ t,' Sam thought, _I just might have to shoot him_.

“You weren't with us earlier,” Dean said. He didn't bother to disguise the accusation.

The man looked a little startled at this. “Well, no.” The _duh,_ while not vocalized, was still obvious.

It was only after that that he seemed to notice that they both still had weapons pointed in his direction. Sam sneaked a peek over his brother, who was wielding one of the handguns from earlier. _Where the hell was he hiding that,_ he wondered, momentarily distracted.

“Please tell me you're part of SG-15,” the man said, after the silence had dragged on for a little too long. It wasn't really a question.

“We are. But you definitely aren't.,” Dean replied. His voice was even, and his words were mild, but he still managed to make the threat plain.

The man looked at them for a few seconds like they had lost their minds. Then he looked like he was waiting for them to crack and give up the joke.

“I'm Daniel Jackson,” he still sounded surprised. “Doctor Daniel Jackson?” he added, as if the title would be the thing that would suddenly cause them to think, “oh, right, **Dr**. Jackson.”

“SG-1,” he finally stated, still sounding like he thought they were pulling his leg. “I was in the briefing this morning. You were there.”

They all stared at each other for a moment. Awkward, Sam thought. He shared a look with his brother, and then said, “Oh! Right. Sure.”

Dr. Jackson continued to give them a look that wavered somewhere between concern and apprehension.

He apparently wasn't convinced by Sam's last ditch effort to salvage it.

“Right,” he said.

They all stared some more.

“So...could you...?” Dr. Jackson nodded at the guns with a slight tilt of his head.

“Oh- yeah, Sorry.” Sam managed. They lowered their weapons.

The man gave them one last hard look. “So,” he said, mock-casually, “What are you guys doing up here?”

Dean grunted as he dragged the guy off into a quiet corner.

“Looking for our captured comrades?” Sam tried.

“That explains the Jaffa suit,” Dr. Jackson said, giving Dean a hand with the body, “But not, so much, what you're doing. The cells are all down three floors from here.”

“So we heard,” Sam said, under his breath.

“What are you doing here?” Dean answered back. “You're supposed to be... on a rescue mission, or something, right? You responded to the distress call.”

It was a reasonable guess, Sam thought. But the funny look was back, and this time raised eyebrows accompanied it.

“Okayyy. Anyhow, yes, we were coming as backup.”

“We? Where's the rest of you?”

The man not quite sighed. “Major Carter was breaking into the ship's systems when we were ambushed. We were standing guard, but there were too many of them so we tried to lead them away. We ended up getting separated- I managed to lose Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c. They may have gotten captured, I don't know- my radio was destroyed.” He relayed it in the rapid-fire, bored way of someone forced to spell out something totally routine, like they'd asked about the traffic in his morning commute. (“ _It's not good, but you know, you get used to it_ ”).

“So I've been looking for Major Carter,” he added, as if prompting a slow student.

“What does she look like?” Sam offered, trying to smooth it over.

Mistake. The man now seriously was looking at them as if they had lost their minds.

“Major Carter?” he asked, apparently unable to articulate anything more. He managed to sputter, “She ran the briefing!”

“Oh, her,” Dean supplied.

“Um, we're new,” Sam said.

“I'm getting that,” Dr. Jackson said. Almost to himself he added: “And here you are, already off-world.”

“Must be our winning personalities,” Dean responded sourly.

“Okay then,” Dr. Jackson said quickly, with a smile as bright as it was false. The situation hadn't gotten any less awkward.

“Well. Uh,” Sam started. “So how about we help you find, uh, this Carter-” he winced as he said it, for the phrasing only deepened the apprehension on the man's face, “and then we'll all go find everyone else?” He didn't see any other way of proceeding; he and Dean weren't going anywhere, and it wasn't like there was an easy way to duck out of it.

The man seemed to have his doubts, but he shrugged. “That'd probably be best, yes,” he said lightly. There was something in his tone, some slight hint of impatience.

Sam nodded in assent. Maybe they could get a little more of this figured out, and if nothing else- well, if it came down to it, it wasn't like there was any particular incentive to listen to some random (if admittedly very convincing) figment. It was groundhog's day, after all. They had to live with the consequences, but never for long.

“Fine,” Dean said to the man, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “But first-”

“Yes?” There was definitely something urgent in his tone.

Dean shrugged in the direction of the fallen soldier. “Do you know how to get his armor off?”

“Um, yes?” He drew the word out and made it a question, as if he were unsure why they had to ask. Sam didn't care. He gave the man a grateful smile. Awkward or not, he could finally get rid of the damn C-4.

*** * ***

There was something wrong with this picture. Daniel kept looking askance at the two men clanking down the hall beside him, but the pieces never managed to fall into place, at least not into anything that made sense. Worse, every time he did, they returned his glances with increasingly suspicious frowns in the case of one and pacifying smiles from the other. Neither was reassuring, though if he had to choose, he preferred the outright suspicion. It was direct, for one. And kind of novel. Usually the pacifying smiles were his forte; it was kind of disconcerting to be on the other side of one.

Nothing about this mission was going according to plan. Sure, the plan had fallen apart about as quickly as they ever do- went down the wrong hall at the wrong time, ended up in a firefight with some of Mithras' Jaffa, got separated – but none of that was surprising. Missions not going according to plan was usually part of the plan. It was just a practical consideration. But the part of the plan involving the mission not going to plan (and really, he was going to have to kick Jack for putting it that way, because it was now stuck in his head) rarely involved finding members of captured SG teams wandering mindlessly around a mother-ship. Usually, by the time SG-1 arrived, captured teams had either already made their escape and just radioed for a rendezvous or they were in pretty deep shit and in need of a rescue. An exploration team could usually get out of any situation short of dire- they just were that well trained. You had to be extremely good at what you did to even qualify for the SGC, so...

a) they were the real deal, but strangely inept, or

b) the SGC had a big problem.

He ran that back in his head. No, he could safely say the SGC had a problem either way. These men were not soldiers. They knew weapons, and they moved with the guarded and lethal grace of the S.F.s, but they were too...loose. And they seemed to have slept through every single briefing and mandatory training the SGC offered. Like, oh, the history of the Stargate Program, Jaffa history and psychology, the basics of Goa'uld technology, the basic layout of all Goa'uld ships... At least on the last, he'd had the excuse of having amnesia, and that didn't seem to be the case here.

So, yes. There was a problem here; the only question was which kind of problem it was. Finding two errant members of SG-15 wandering around, apparently ignorant of even the basics was ...not ideal. Daniel could only hope the rest of them were cooling their heels in the cells and not also wandering around like wayward sheep. Rounding them all up was not something he looked forward to.

But - He had no reason to doubt that they weren't SG-15. Hell, he'd seen them at the briefing that morning. And though the fake SG-11 had been superficially convincing, but all the preparation and training hadn't been able to give them the right nuances. Like the half dozen pop-culture references these two had made in the last ten minutes. All used with the depth and fluency acquired over a lifetime.

So.

“You know,” he said, interrupting whatever whispered argument the two had been having, “I'm pretty sure wearing that armor is in violation of the Geneva convention.”

They both looked over at him like he was nuts. Ah, well. That was familiar ground. But hey, at least now they were acknowledging his presence. It was an improvement over the way they'd simply continued on as if he weren't there. No- that wasn't it. They'd been aware of him, but in the same way you were aware of a table. It was there, but inconsequential. It was disconcerting and not just a little annoying.

“Dude,” the first one said, “It's a spaceship,” he said this slowly. “In outer space,” he added, like Daniel was suffering from some acute mental disability.

“I doubt they were thinking of extrasolar warfare when they drafted it,” added the second, the one who had been concealing an impressive amount of weaponry in his uniform. The weaponry had been packed up in a backpack, which he'd swung over one shoulder.

“Besides, what are they going to do, court-martial us?” said the first. The second elbowed him in the ribs.

“I mean yes, of course they could court-martial us,” the first amended. “But uh...the lives of our teammates are worth it?”

Daniel blinked. “Right.” That foreboding feeling was back. “I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your names.”

“We didn't say,” said the one tersely. The other rolled his eyes and said, “I'm Sam. He's Dean.”

Daniel added it to his mental tally of weirdness and just kept staring at them expectantly.

“Oh,” added the second one, Sam. “Winchester.” Daniel just raised an eyebrow. “Both of us.”

“Should you be telling me that? The SGC may be more flexible, but...” He let it trail off, then watched their faces carefully.

“We're brothers,” the first one – Dean- growled.

Ha! Daniel masterfully managed to hide a smirk. Baiting them wasn't exactly dignified, but it was good to finally get a reaction. But wait- his eyes narrowed. “You were placed on the same team?”

“Yes,” Dean said.

“Really.”

Dean shrugged indifferently.

Daniel sighed, if only in his mind. He resolved to find Sam, then return to their regularly scheduled rescue, then get the hell home to his nice-and-above-all unused bed. At that point, the mystery of SG-15 would be Jack's problem...and General Hammond's. It wouldn't be his until tomorrow, after he got some sleep. The call from Major Pierce had come in right as he had started to thinking about heading home for some downtime. And wouldn't you know, Goa'uld ships did not come equipped with Starbucks. Maybe that could be reason enough to go public; the franchise would probably be eager to expand anyway it could.

He rubbed his face with his hand. That was it, he'd finally lost his mind. He wasn't tired exactly, but there'd been this new ancient tablet to work on and he'd kind of spent the last three days on the base. The military was good at many things, but buying comfortable beds weren't one of them. But he'd been this close to finishing the translation. And look where that had gotten him. He'd swear never to do it again, except for the fact that he wasn't going to fool anybody on that point, least of all himself. Plus, when it came to either finishing some research or continuing to unpack his apartment from the last time he'd...ok, died. It wasn't a hard decision.

Daniel rubbed at his temple, mostly to keep it from twitching. So he smiled, probably not that convincingly, and pointed down the hallway. “The control room should be down there. Hopefully we can use it to get an idea....” he trailed off as the unmistakable clank-clank of a Jaffa patrol became audible. “Of course.” He looked over at the brothers. “Neither of you were thinking something like, oh, 'this can't get any worse,' were you?”

They shook their heads dutifully, though they still were giving him odd looks.

“Of course not, what was I thinking.” he sighed. “We passed a storage room a few yards back. We'll just head back there.”

But Dean was still shaking his head.

“What?” Daniel asked, exasperated. “We need to go.”

“Look,” Dean said, “We might as well just face this thing head on. I'm tired of running around these stupid corridors.”

“Corridors, I think you'll find, are far better than _cells.”_

Dean pursed his lips, as if he actually had to think about that one. He shrugged.

“We could end this all pretty quickly,” he concluded.

Daniel stared at him. “Yes, it could. That's exactly the problem.”

The footsteps grew louder.

“Dean, maybe we should listen to him,” Sam said, “he is the...uh, _expert_ , after all.” He put an odd emphasis on the word that Daniel could not decipher, but it seemed to mean something to the other man.

“Fine,” he said, “But when this ends with me getting shot again, I'm blaming you.”

Daniel headed back down towards the storage room, and the two (finally) followed. He punched in the combination to open the door, something that unduly impressed the brothers. It'd worry him more if there wasn't a patrol right around the corner. He managed to get the doors closed just as they rounded it.

“We could probably take them out,” Dean groused.

“It'd draw too much attention,” Daniel countered. “And you'll find it's a lot easier to sneak around when they're not actively looking for you.” It came out harsher than he intended, but the brothers fell silent.

It meant hearing the patrol that much better. Clank, Clank, Clank. You could almost set your watch- They were slowing down. Great. They...were coming into the storage room, weren't they? Of course they were.

He started looking for a place for the three of them to hide.

“Time for plan B,” Dean announced.

“And what's that?” Daniel asked, distracted.

“Just try to look scared.”

Daniel had one blissful moment of only being confused by this statement. Unfortunately, enlightenment soon dawned. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

Dean shrugged.

“There's no way- you're only going to get yourselves killed.”

The brothers seemed unconcerned. “Yeah, probably,” Dean conceded, “But this is kind of our thing. Plus, this is nothing.”

His brother was nodding in agreement. “Remember that job at the Russian Embassy?” he said, completely ignoring Daniel...again.

“With the-?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, how did we pull that off?”

Sam shook his head. “You'll have to ask Chuck that one, because I'm still not sure.”

Daniel commendably did not try to beat his own brains out against the wall. The doors unlocked.

The brothers drew their weapons and pushed their expressions into something stone-faced and fierce.

The door opened, and in stepped the First Prime. He looked at Sam and Dean with consternation. “What are you doing?” he demanded. The room was suddenly filled with Jaffa.

“We spotted this _Tauri_ dog skulking through the halls.” Sam said. His pronunciation was passable, at least. “We captured him.”

The First Prime looked pleased- and even more so when he got a closer look at Daniel. Oh yes. This was going to go great.

“Well done. You have served your master well.” He gestured to the patrol, who quickly went over to the far wall and picked up a gold chest.

“Come,” said the First Prime. “You may present the prisoner to our Lord,” he added magnanimously.

“We're honored,” Sam replied. The First Prime nodded and left the room.

The rest of the Jaffa shuffled out, bearing the heavy-looking chest on a litter. Dean flashed Daniel a thumbs up as they trailed after them.

Daniel was forced to wonder, not for the first time, if the universe at large just enjoyed screwing with him. He suspected the answer was 'yes'.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean was growing sick of corridors. The entire ship seemed to be made out of them, and maybe it was.

It felt like they'd been walking for miles, which he knew wasn't true. The armor was just that uncomfortable. Seriously, whoever designed it was a sadist.

 To make things worse, their eventual destination was not at all worth the trip. What was the point of having a giant, Egyptian-themed space ship if you were just going to stick a stone chair in a boring-ass room, Dean wondered. If he were an evil overlord, at least he'd have style. He'd seen enough late night TV to know how it should look: a few dancing girls, enough food to feed an army, some random treasure. This- this was just plain disappointing. The room was in stark contrast to the gaudy gold halls. There was something cave-like about the place; there were bare stone walls, a few benches, and that was about it, except for the throne. It was large but plain, carved out of what looked like obsidian, and it faced out to a window that showed the planet below. It was like being in a cave on the moon. Other than the kinky bastard himself, the room was empty except for a few guards and a few burly, bare-chested men wearing capes. Two of them were wrestling before Mithras, who watched them with the bored disinterest of a channel surfer.

 

He looked up when they entered the room.

“My Lord,” said Sergeant Kiss-Ass, “Where would you have us place the offering?”

Mithras' eyes flicked to the chest, but only for a second. He waved a hand sharply. “Wherever.” He seemed pleased to see Dr. Jackson. Dean doubted Jackson felt the same.

“Daniel Jackson of SG-1.” It wasn't a question. He never took his eyes off Jackson. Creepy didn't even cover it.

“My Lord,” Sergeant Kiss-Ass interrupted.

“Be silent.” Mithras said, “You captured this man?” The last was directed at Dean.

Sergeant Kiss-Ass looked a little pained at that.

“We did, uh- my lord.” Dean answered.

Mithras seemed to muse on this for a second.

“Were there any others?”

“I'm alone,” Jackson interjected.

Mithras was not terribly impressed by this line of bravado, but there was something... Jackson gave Dean a significant look.

“You cannot lie to your God,” Mithras said- well, sneered.

“But I can definitely lie to you,” Jackson said, unperturbed.

Mithras stood up and stalked closer. Jackson's expression never wavered, still seeming aloof. He stared the man – god?- right in the eye. Dean could almost believe he'd stare him down, but then Mithras' eyes flashed gold.

 _Aw, shit_.

“Kneel!” Mithras thundered. Jackson 'accidentally' nudged an elbow into Dean's side as he leaned forward. Dean remembered the scene with Major Pierce and got the message. He swung the staff around and hit Jackson behind the knees, and shoved down heavily on one of his shoulders.

“Kneel before your god,” he tried. No, it still sounded stupid.

It seemed to pass muster, though Mithras seemed less that impressed, pausing for a beat to look at Dean before turning his attention back to Jackson. The wrestlers continued as if nothing had happened.

“You will tell me what you are doing here,” Mithras said, and his voice took on a creepy disguised-phone-call quality. He raised the hand with the bracelet. Dean doubted he was trying to admire it in the light.

Sam stepped forward before Dean could.

“My lord,” he said, “There is something you need to know.”

“What is it?” Mithras demanded, beyond pissed.

Dean hoped Sam had a plan. He wasn't looking forward to the dungeon treatment.

“It's- “ he lowered his voice. “I believe this man was trying to reach a Tok'ra contact on board. He was speaking into some sort of Tauri device when we captured him.”

Jackson closed his eyes, looking pained.

“Where is this device?” Mithras said, but quietly.

“I don't know, my lord, I lost sight of it in the struggle.”

Mithras looked thoughtful for a second, before whirling around. He stalked back to his throne chair, sat down and tapped on hand on the arm rest.

“Go. I require...privacy.” he announced to the room. Dean started to drag Jackson away, more hoping than expecting to be included in the dismissal.

“Not you,” Mithras added, prying his eyes of Jackson long enough to address Dean.

The soldiers and wrestlers all filed out of the room, leaving their oh-so-merry trio alone with Mithras, Sergeant Kiss-Ass and some other random minion. The doors eventually slid shut behind them with a metallic ring. Mithras gestured, and Sergeant Kiss-Ass wrested Jackson from Dean's grip and threw him forward. Jackson managed to catch himself before sliding face first into the throne. He pushed himself off the ground and glared up at Mithras, who stood up from his chair and loomed over him.

Dean shifted his weight, not sure what to expect. He mentally ran down the list of weapons in the bag, trying to think of something that would work against a god, if that's what he was. Of Mithras, all he could remember was that he had been a god favored by soldiers and had killed a cow, or something. He glanced over at Sam, who was trying to shift the weight of the backpack strapped over one shoulder without drawing too much attention to it. He caught Sam's eye and briefly flicked his gaze back to Mithras. Sam tilted his head slightly and glanced at Sergeant Kiss-Ass, then back at Dean. Dean gave an almost imperceptible shrug, rolling one shoulder.

 _Three...two...one_. Dean spun around, using the heavy staff as a pivot. He then shifted his weight and swung the staff up, catching Sergeant Kiss-Ass hard on the back of his legs and sweeping him to the floor. As the man tumbled to the ground, Dean moved forward, picked up the staff, and hit him hard in the face with the wide flared end.

He whirled around to face the other guard, who had overcome his shock and moved for the attack. Dean barely managed to knock the snake-gun out of his hand. It went skittering across the floor. He ignored it. Distantly, he could hear Sam saying something, but he ignored that too. The sum total of his attention was going to fighting off the guard, who was surprisingly resilient and far stronger than he looked. The heavy metal armor was a problem, though the guard was apparently not hampered by its weight or its fit. The staff was unwieldy, but Dean was reluctant to abandon it. He feigned to the left, and when the man moved to intercept him, he hit the guard's unprotected right side, hard. The man staggered, but gave no sign of the broken ribs Dean had expected. _Awesome_ , Dean thought just as the guard grabbed the staff, twisted it away, and landed a hit right to Dean's solar plexus. He fell like a goddamn ton of bricks, and wheezing all the way.

The guard ripped the staff out of Dean's hand as he fell, turning it for a better grip. He advanced, swinging the staff around until its head was pointing at Dean's heart. It cracked open with an orange sizzle. _Fuck_. Dean closed his eyes for a second, pissed at how stupid it all was, pissed that he hadn't checked the staff earlier.

There was a zappy-noise. Dean braced himself, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes just in time to see the guard topple forward. Dean was rolling before he even had time to think, just barely managing to get out of the way before the man fell to the floor. A hand reached down. It belonged to Jackson, who still held the snake-gun prepped and ready in his other hand. Dean grabbed the proffered hand and stood up, still wheezing. Jackson looked grim. He turned and punched a code into the door panel.

Dean's eyes flicked around the room, looking for Sam and keeping an eye out for any further threats. The sharp report of a gunshot sent him whirling around, hoping to see a dead bad guy. He was disappointed but not surprised to see Mithras still standing there, whole as ever. Well...not quite as whole. There was a neat hole right over his heart, but it didn't seem to have fazed him at all. _Shit._ Mithras threw up the hand with the bracelet and flexed his fingers, cat-quick. Sam was thrown hard into the wall before he could even get another shot off. The gun went skittering across the ground towards Dean. Sam was slumped on the floor, dazed if not unconscious.

“You will regret this treachery,” Mithras spat. He tapped the top of one hand with another, an alarm started up, somewhere deep in the ship.

Jackson made a swift movement sideways, and shot the door panel with his snake-gun. Mithras turned and gestured with his hand again. Jackson was thrown into a wall.

Dean lunged down and grabbed the gun, spinning up and firing. It was pointless: the air around Mithras flared into a golden bubble and the bullet ricocheted. _Ok, not good_.

“You cannot defeat me,” Mithras said, his voice booming oddly. He stalked towards Dean. As he drew nearer, Dean circled around in order to avoid getting backed into a corner.

“You will suffer a hundred thousand deaths before I am done with you.” Mithras moved closer. Dean glanced down at the bag of weapons, then lunged for it, dumping the contents on the ground. They scattered, some bouncing and sliding almost all the way across the room.

Mithras loomed over him. Dean braced himself for getting thrown into a wall, but he wasn't that lucky. Instead, his head cracked open and the world became filled with pain and light. He tried to focus, move past it, but everything became faded and lost as the seconds ticked on.

He heard screaming, but it seemed distant. The world shrank until it was just him and the pain, which greeted him like an old friend and sank deep into his bones.

As suddenly it started, it ended. Mithras bellowed. There was a knife in his hand, and Jackson smiled hard from where he was slumped against the wall. Dean scrambled for the gun outside his reach. Mithras turned to presumably squash Jackson like a bug, but he didn't get far.

Sam rose up behind him, his face set into a terrible snarl. Mithras whirled to face him, but managed nothing more. Sam cut halfway through his neck with his first blow, and had severed it by the third. Blood covered his face, but he didn't seem to care. _His brother could be a scary bastard_. The thought flickered through Dean's mind, but within half a heartbeat something shifted and Sam just looked tired and sore. Dean struggled to his feet. He looked around for Jackson, who had managed to stand and hobbled over to them, stooping to pick up a discarded gun along the way.

He glanced down at the body, then looked up at Sam. “Was there a reason you tried an exorcism?”

Dean traded glances with Sam, who shrugged.

“You understand Latin?” Sam asked, deflecting.

Jackson gave him another one of his funny looks.

“Uh, no reason,” Sam added. He stared intently at the body, then reached down to grab the bracelet-weapon when Jackson without warning leaned forward and jerked Sam back. Jackson brought his arm up and fired at something Dean could not see. Whatever it was hit the floor with a fleshy slap. Dean pushed forward. There, lying on the ground and was a dead...snake...thing.

“It jumped out of the head, right at me,” Sam said. He couldn't quite keep the horror out of his voice. Dean didn't blame him. That shit was nasty. And fucked up, even by their standards. Seriously. The guy had a _snake_ in his _head._

“Nice shot,” he managed, almost reflexively. “What did you get your doctorate in, kicking ass?”

Jackson raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly, no.”

Dean shook himself and turned back to his brother.

“Okay, what now?” Dean asked. “We defeated the bad guy and...?”

“ _A_ bad guy,” Jackson said significantly, “Who is yes, now dead.” Dean ignored him.

“I dunno, maybe we still have to rescue everyone?”

Sam considered this, then turned to Jackson, as if remembering he was there. “What do you think?”

“I think your plans could use some work. Why the hell did you tell him I was working for the Tok'ra?”

Sam shrugged. “It was a calculated risk. I figured he'd want the intel.”

“And that couldn't have backfired at all,” Jackson asked, a little testily.

“It didn't, did it?” Sam answered.

Dean rolled his eyes. “You were looking for that woman right? Carter or something? Why don't we go do that.” It earned him another look, the kind that mingled condescension with disbelief.

“Well, yes, that would be a good idea,” Jackson said drily, “If there weren't about a hundred Jaffa right outside the doors. They're about a minute from just trying to break in.”

“Great.” Dean rubbed his face. “Any chance of getting that damn alarm off?”

“You mean that alarm? The alarm that's going to trigger the self-destruct?”

Dean shrugged.

“Then...no. Well, it will eventually, but trust me when I say you don't want it to.”

“There's gotta be a way,” Dean argued.

“Sure. But you're going to have trouble getting the code.”

“Why?” Sam asked.

“It's set to go off unless Mithras cancels it. Little fail safe plan.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in it.

“But what about all his, you know, people?” Dean asked.

“The Gou'ald are not well known for their concern for their worshipers,” Jackson remarked, and while his tone remained even, there was something dry and bitter lurking under it. It was familiar. It was the tone of a man whose enmity carried a personal edge.

“Alright, so what do you suggest?” Sam asked. Weariness seemed to drip off him- well, blood dripped off him, but wasn't he looking particularly chipper, anyway.

Jackson handed Sam a handkerchief.

He nodded his head significantly towards the door, from behind which, sure enough, bangs and zapping could be heard. “Unless you're looking to go out like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – we're stuck with sitting tight and waiting for her to find us.”

“Really? No secret passages or, uh, you know, ventilation shafts?” Sam had his earnest-and-helpful face on, the one used for coaxing answers out of witnesses. It was wasted on Jackson.

“You must watch a lot of TV,” he remarked archly. Dean figured that meant 'no.'

“So, uhm, you do this often?” Sam tried.

Jackson closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “The dead false god part, the daring rescue part, or the none-of-this-makes-sense part?”

Sam shrugged.

Jackson mulled it over. “Actually... yes.” He pursed his lips, “And what about you?”

“What about us?” Sam asked, looking entirely too innocent.

“For starters? Oh, I don't know. How about how you ended up on an off-world mission- with an SG team- despite having no experience?”

“What? Nah.” Dean said. “SG-15. Says so on our uniforms. Or did. Right, Sammy?”

“Uh, right,” Sam replied. “SG-15, that's us.”

“C'mon,” Jackson said, and his tone was too reasonable for comfort. “We're gonna be stuck here for awhile. You're not part of the SGC, so what are you? You can't be the NID, they'd have prepped you better.” He smiled, and it was so open and friendly that Dean distrusted it on principle alone.

The bangs outside the door got louder. Dean glowered at it, then turned back to Jackson.

“Dude, the door's about to be busted down. We're like two minutes from getting overrun by guys who are going to be _pissed_ when they see we ganked their boss. We've got bigger problems than our life stories.”

Sam snorted at that. “Yeah right. I wish.” Jackson looked at him curiously.

“You know what I mean,” Dean said.

“C'mon, Dean. I think I've finally gotten the joke. Seriously? Our lives suck, man. Getting dropped in some cheesy-ass scifi show we've never heard of is practically a vacation.”

Dean looked his brother over with a suspicious eye.

“You managed to get a concussion being thrown in the wall, didn't you?”

Sam gingerly felt the back of his head, then winced.

“Maybe.”

“Wonderful. Only you could get a concussion in an action show. That never happens.” He turned to Jackson, who was gaping at them openly, mouth half open. “You've never had a concussion, I bet.”

“I'm sorry- _what_? I mean, of course I- _what_?” Confusion, frustration, bemusement. It was hard to remember that the guy wasn't real.

The banging outside the door got louder.

“Damn, I guess we're getting the Bolivian army ending after all,” Dean said, to no one in particular. He looked around. No cover. He reached for his gun-

And the doors blew open.

 

* * *

This mission was turning into a goddamn game of musical chairs. 'Round and 'round they went, and each time, someone else was gone, until there was only one chair left and only one man stand- _sit_ ting. Whoop-de-doo. He'd managed to lose Daniel and Carter in an accidental ambush so poorly executed that little old ladies could've beaten it.

Which made it a little _teensy_ bit vexing that he fell for it. It was just sheer bad timing, right as Carter finished up some poking around in the ship's computers- Bam! Bunch of Jaffa, doing inventory or something equally stupid. It was like they'd crawled out of the non-existent woodwork.

The numbers were against them, but that wouldn't have been a problem if he'd been paying more attention. He'd grown complacent. Raid a few dozen motherships and sooner or later they all started to seem the same. Corridors, Jaffa, egomaniacal bad guy... Occupational hazard- you ended up letting your guard down. Except it had been his team, so...

So he'd deal with it after they all made their daring escape, that's what he'd do. There might even be memos. Stern ones.

He reached down to his radio and clicked it on. “Carter? Teal'c. Daniel. Come in.” He clicked it off, but there was no response. He held the button down again, “Hellooo.” Nothing. Same as ten minutes ago. Great. He let his hand fall from his vest, where the radio was clipped and resumed walking. He was heading for the cells- hopefully an opportunity would present itself. Or maybe, if any of his team were still free, they'd have the same idea.

He rounded another corner when his radio cracked to life.

“Colonel O'Neill,” came Teal'c's voice right into his ear. Jack clicked the radio on. “Good to hear from you, Teal'c, what's your status?” He let go.

“I am fine, O'Neill.”

“What took you so long?” He paused. “I've already lost Daniel and Carter.”

“I was captured by some Bull Guards. It took a few moments to defeat them.” While Jack was still chewing on this, Teal'c continued: “Perhaps they are together, working on disabling the ship.”

Jack stopped walking. “The guards?” he asked, still stuck on 'a few moments'.

“Major Carter and Daniel Jackson,” Teal'c clarified.

“Right, right.” He cleared his throat. “So where are you?”

“I am preparing to enter the cells,” came the reply, stoic as ever.

“Lead you right to them, eh?”

“It was convenient.”

“Of course it was.” Jack took off down the hall. “Wait for me.” He shook his head, trying to concentrate on the task at hand, but gave in. “Really a few moments?”

“They were...poorly trained,” Teal'c answered. “Many of their generation have begun to abandon the less powerful Goa'uld. Mithras is a minor lord. The most skilled warriors in his service are most likely spies.”

“Good to know. If I run into any, I'll try flashing them the secret handshake.” He jogged around yet another corner.

“I do not believe that would be effective.” The radio gave a crackle.

“Where do they go, anyway?” he asked.

“Many chose to join the Free Jaffa.”

Jack looked down at his radio. “About that secret handshake...”

“The rest tend to enter the service of Ba'al.”

“Ah. Never mind then.” He hurried a little faster down the halls, and at long last reached the alcove Teal'c was lurking in- looming? Teal'c didn't lurk very well.

It was easy to find for other reasons as well. All the bodies kind of gave it away.

Jack did a quick headcount. There were four, and they had all been armed. Teal'c saw his gaze.

“They were-” Teal'c began.

“Very poorly trained,” Jack interrupted. “Right. Gotcha.”

Perhaps it was a good thing the higher ups hadn't known about things like this when Teal'c had first joined them.

“Okay-” he said, and then the doors across the hall opened. Jack pulled his gun up, but the first face that popped out was a familiar one.

Carter blinked at him. “Sir.”

“Carter. I'm guessing a rescue is _not_ in order?” He let his grip on the gun relax.

“Uh, no sir.” Carter still looked a little startled to see him.

“Something wrong with your radio, then?” He said it patiently. Patience- patience was the key.

“Ah – yes sir. It got fried when the panel blew.” There was a note of apology in her voice, but he got the feeling that was just her humoring him.

“Remind me when we get back, Carter, to see about getting radios more durable than walkie-talkies.”

“Sir?”

He waved a hand. “Never mind.”

Most of SG-15 shuffled out behind her, sheepishly reattaching their gear. The regulars, anyway. The scientists temporarily assigned to them looked a little green around the gills, and mostly just milled around uselessly. Jack sighed inwardly. One last figure stepped out into the hall. It was a young man who looked no more than fifteen, baby-faced and and a nose that might be called 'patrician' by someone feeling charitable. He was wearing armor that looked far too big for him, though if his chest swelled up any more it wouldn't present a problem; he'd just float, like a balloon.

“Carter...who's your friend?” Jack drawled.

The boy's eyes went wide, and fixed on a point behind Jack.

“Oh- Colonel O'Neill, meet Sal'ek. Sal'ek, Colonel O'Neill. He, ah, assisted me.” Jack understood. She'd gotten stuck babysitting, but didn't want to hurt the boy's feelings. The boy colored, but he didn't look away from whatever he was staring at. Jack turned to look.

Teal'c was standing – looming, really – at his shoulder. Jack turned his head back to the boy.

“Master Teal'c,” the boy squeaked.

Teal'c inclined his head. “You are very young to be serving as a warrior. Should you not be at home, taking care of you mother?”

“I am honored to serve!” Teal'c obviously had a fan. “Master Bra'tac once came to my village. He spoke of you, and of the fight for freedom. That is why I am here,” he added proudly.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

“...and the recruiters,” the boy finished.

“Indeed.”

Jack clapped his hands together. “Well, as charming as this has all been, we all have places we need to be. Pierce, round up your team and head back down to the gate. Carter, Teal'c, you're with me. We'll go round up Daniel.”

“Sir-” Carter and Pierce spoke at the same time.

Jack looked at them expectantly. “Yes?”

They looked at each other, than Pierce said, “I'm still missing two of my team. They weren't with us when we were captured.”

“No one answered our hails on the surface,” Carter murmured. She was frowning.

“You think they're on the ship, don't you,” Jack said, looking at Pierce. “Couldn't it just be...broken radios...?”

Pierce considered it. “Maybe, sir. But knowing those two? They'll be here somewhere. One way or another. They go looking for trouble on the rare occasions when trouble doesn't find them.”

Jack sighed. “Alright. We'll keep a look out. What are their names?”

“Winchester.” The man winced.

Jack waited for him to continue. When he didn't, he said, “Both of them?” slightly pointedly.

“Yessir.” Pierce was taking refuge in regulations.

“What are they, related?” Jack joked.

“Brothers,” Pierce informed him.

Jack blinked, then stared hard at him. “I was kidding! How the hell did that happen?”

“I'm not entirely sure, sir.”

“Alright, alright.” He rubbed his forehead. “I think I remember them. Carter?”

She lowered her voice. “What about Sal'ek?”

Jack glanced over the boy, who was still staring at Teal'c with rapt attention. “He's with us. He can be our trusty guide. Pierce- you shouldn't have any trouble. I don't think they were expecting any visitors- there was only two men at the gate and we already took care of them. Let's move out.”

Pierce saluted and shepherded his team down the opposite hallway.

Jack watched him go. “Let's go see if we can find where Daniel wandered off to this time. Any bets?”

“Well, if he's not here...control room, maybe?” Carter suggested.

Jack nodded thoughtfully. Then he looked down at the boy. “Well?” The boy looked confused. “Guiding. Go on. We're in need of it.” The boy grinned and strode down the hall. They followed, though less conspicuously.

“Why did you not send him down to the planet with SG-15?” Teal'c asked when the kid was out of ear shot.

“I don't want him getting caught in the crossfire. If things go south, he can blend in a lot better up here than down there. It'll be a lot easier to hide the fact he's helping us. Look at him.” He gestured, encompassing in one vague wave of his hand the boy's youth, size, and inexperience. “No one would expect him to be able to fight us. What is he doing here, anyway?”

“Mithras seems to have trouble filling his ranks. He was most likely taken from his home and brought here,” Teal'c answered. His face was grave, but then wasn't it always.

“The recruiters he mentioned...?” Jack shook his head. “He's just a kid.”

“I would not be surprised to see him in training, but he should not be here. They must have lost very many, to go to such lengths,” Teal said. He was watching the boy. His usual stoicism gave way to something more wistful and sad.

“We'll send him home.” Jack said. His voice was a little gruff. He pressed his lips together.

Teal'c nodded his head, beginning to reply when an alarm sounded. Carter jumped. So did Jack. Teal'c...didn't.

“What the hell is that?” Jack demanded.

Carter shook her head. Teal'c listened for a moment and said, “I believe it is a general alert. It is not uncommon for the lesser vassals to have them. They are...” he searched for the appropriate comparison, “panic buttons.”

“Oh. Okay,” Jack said, a little relieved. It made sense, what with prisoners escaping and all that. Made their jobs a little harder but-

“It will trigger the self-destruct if it is not deactivated,” Teal'c added. Jack came to a halt and stared at him. “Great,” he said. “Well kids, I think we can safely say we've found Daniel. The bridge it is. Shall we?”

The turned at the next passageway, and Sal'ek once again tried to take the lead. “Not this time, kid,” Jack told him. “I think we know the way. You stay behind us.”

The boy looked like he wanted to protest, but acquiesced when he saw the look on Jack's face.

Ten minutes later, they were neared the bridge. Staff blasts and shouting echoed down the corridor. Jack leaned against the wall and cautiously peeked around the corner. Six Jaffa were trying to blast their way in. They weren't having much luck, but then again, they wouldn't. No self-respecting evil overlord would have the doors to his throne room be as easy to bust down as all the rest. And the Goa'uld, despite everything else, were only stupid about some things, not everything. He eased back and signaled to the others.

Ambushes weren't all bad... provided he got to be the one doing the ambushing. A few minutes of shooting interspersed with ducking, and the corridor was theirs.

But now they were the ones with the problem of breaking in.

“Daniel! Open up!” he shouted. There was no response.

“The doors are probably fairly sound-proof, sir,” Carter suggested.

Jack pulled off his hat and dragged a hand over his head.

“What do you think? Explosives?”

“We could probably set a charge small enough to at least weaken the doors, sir, without risking-”

“Blowing us all to kingdom come, Carter?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Uh- yes.”

“Good. Let's do it.”

A few minutes later, they were hoofing it back around the corner.

“Fire in the hole,” Carter said, and then she pushed the button.

BOOM. He'd been expecting loud. He had not been expecting anything quite _that_ loud. It was sound with texture, heavy and sharp.

“Carter... are you sure you didn't go a little overboard?” He really needed to work on the sarcasm. Or not, it did seem to work for him.

“What would make you say that?” She replied, a little too innocently.

Jack peeked around the corner again. The doors were no longer… doors.

“Oh, nothing.”

He picked up his gun and sauntered around the corner. Teal'c and Carter followed. The blast hadn't destroyed the doors, but it had bent them inward, like some bizarre metal oragami. He poked his head in.

“Yoo-hoo,” he called. Inside was a fairly standard bridge, though it definitely had a 'cave' vibe going.

“Oh. Hey, Jack,” said Daniel casually. He was standing on the other side of the room with two men in Jaffa armor whom Jack vaguely recognized from...something. One was covered in blood obviously not his own.

“So- how's it going?”

“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. A little torture, a little deicide.”

Jack stepped into the room, and gestured for the others to follow. “Good, good.”

Carter went over to the wall and started poking things. Eventually a panel of crystals slid out, and she busied herself with that.

Jack looked down at the headless body at Daniel's feet, then up at the tall young man who was covered in blood.

“Novel.” He glanced over at the bloody machete lying on the floor. “You brought the machete along...why?” he said to the blood-covered young man, who just blinked at him.

“They come in handy,” said his (presumable) brother.

“I'm getting that,” Jack said, bemused. “So- beheading-”

“Most things find being headless an inconvenience,” the (presumable) brother murmured. There was some sarcasm there, and if Jack was feeling less charitable, he might have said there was a hint of insolence as well. Graciously, he chose to ignore it.

“...Yes, that's certainly...true.” Daniel agreed. He was shooting Jack odd, furtive little glances. Whatever it was, it was going to have to wait.

“So. I'm guessing you're the Winchesters.”

“Yeah, that's us,” the bloody one said, touching the back of his head and wincing.

“SG-15,” the other oh-so-helpfully supplied. Every line of his body seemed to threaten insubordination. Hell, even his hair. Spiked was not acceptable by Air Force standards.

“Yeah, I got that,” Jack said. He raised his voice, calling out hopefully, “Carter? Any luck with the alarm?”

“Sorry, sir. Maybe if I had more time...”

“Well, you don't. Right?” He glanced up at Daniel, who nodded. “There are but fifteen minutes remaining, O'Neill,” Teal'c confirmed.

“Alright, campers. We're out of here. Back to the rings. Hup, hup.”

The retreat down the endless halls was made with a little less enthusiasm than Jack would have liked. You'd the think the threat of being blown up would motivate people to move a little faster, but apparently not so much.

The brothers Winchester seemed to be finding the time to complain about the décor.

“All these damn corridors look the same. I don't know how you all tell them apart.” Jack didn't look behind him to see which one it was. He just made mental note of the 'you all'.

Daniel, on the other hand, hobbled along next to him, giving it his best. He had an arm wrapped around his ribs and he was wincing.

“Threw you into a wall, did he?” Jack asked knowingly as they passed yet another storage room that was not the one they needed.

“You'd think they'd go for some variety one in a while,” Daniel answered.

Jack glanced back at the Winchesters, who were moving at a similarly slow pace, with similarly pained expressions. Jack was guessing it wasn't from bruised ribs, in their cases. The armor was damned uncomfortable, as he knew from personal experience.

The boy trailed behind them, his eyes wider than even before.

Jack turned his head back around and looked at Teal'c.

“I think you're going to have to share your fan,” Jack he remarked.

“Perhaps it is so,” Teal'c said, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“I suppose actually seeing a freshly-killed false god trumps a few false god-killing stories.” Jack went on.

“He is very young,” Teal'c said, “He became caught up in events perhaps unwillingly, but sees it as a chance to be part of the stories the old men tell.” They turned into another corridor.

“Just call him Jim Hawkins?” Jack asked.

Teal'c looked at him evenly. “Why would I do that?”

“Treasure Island? No? Never mind; we'll rent it.”

They turned another corner, finally reaching the storage room with the transport rings. The brothers seemed a bit leery of them, but eventually they got everyone safely within the rings. Jack ran over and pushed the button, then darted back in the circle before the rings opened up and carried them to the surface of the planet below.

Major Pierce was waiting for them.

“What are you still doing here, Pierce?”

The major shifted uncomfortably. “Can't dial out, sir. They must have a gate on board. They're probably evacuating.”

“That should be okay; we can wait. Can't we?” he looked around the assembled group. There were a series of vague nods.

“Until someone gets word out to Anubis,” Daniel added.

“You just had to say it, didn't you?” Jack asked.

Daniel shrugged.

Jack rolled his eyes. “We should still have some time, at least. You- Dr...”

“Colma,” said SG-15's resident scientist, a pretty woman who looked far too young to have as many doctorates as she did.

“Colma, right. You're in charge of dialing out. Keep trying it until you get a lock. The rest of you- just... be ready. There could still be some Jaffa around.”

“About seven,” the more belligerent Winchester interjected, though in this case he was actually being helpful and not a pain in the ass.

“Oh?”

“We ran into them,” explained the heretofore sheepish one, “An old man and six idiots.”

“I wonder if any of them have managed to find their way back yet,” the first said. The question had an academic quality to it.

His brother shrugged. Jack opened his mouth to ask them what exactly they'd done to the patrol when Daniel cut in.

“Jack-” he said.

“Yes, Daniel?”

“Could I speak to you for a moment?” His tone was strangely insistent, and from the pointed eye spasms, Jack got the idea that it was about the two young men.

“Sure.” But Daniel didn't want to chat within earshot of anyone else, it seemed. Jack followed Daniel as he wandered over to the far side of the clearing.

“It's about Sam and Dean,” he said.

“Who?”

“The Winchesters.”

“Which is which?” Jack asked, momentarily nonplussed.

“The tall one covered in blood is Sam, and the smart-ass is his brother, Dean.”

“Okay, yeah, so what about them?”

Daniel paused, apparently searching for the right words. He looked up at the sky, as if expecting to find the answers there.

“Well?”

Daniel pressed his lips together. “I'm not sure where to start.”

“Pick somewhere, Daniel,” Jack said. His patience at this point was growing a mite thin. “Start with the head-cutting.”

“That's really not the weird thing,” Daniel said.

“No?”

“Trust me, it's not. They don't know what they should. I'm not sure...”

“What? Are you saying they're fakes?”

“No, not exactly. They are who they say they are, I think. For the most part. I don't think they're SGC, though. They don't know _anything_ about the goa'uld.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be...not good. But I kind of recognize them, and Pierce sure the hell does- he asked us to look for them.”

“This wouldn't be the first time.”

“You're talking about the Tyler thing, aren't you?”

“Well-” Daniel was trying to look conciliatory. Jack hated when he did that.

“Daniel, there's a hole in that little theory: They may not know about the SGC, but they sure seem like some of our boys to me. Hell, they were telling the kid about the pie at some diner in Tucson. Tyler didn't know anything about Earth, let alone anything in enough detail to fake that.”

“Okay, so maybe it's not exactly like that, but it's something. I _am_ pretty sure they're from Earth, but-”

“But what?”

“They… uh...” Daniel trailed off.

“Spit it out already,”

Daniel flexed his hands, as if trying to strangle the words. “They think they're in a TV show.”

Jack said nothing for a minute.

“Come again?”

“They think all of this-” he gestured at the clearing, “and all of us, I might add, are just...fictional.”

“ Oh, for crying out loud, Daniel. You've got to be kidding me.”

“I'm not. I really wish I was.”

Jack pulled off his hat and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“So what, they just shared this with you?”

“Not exactly, no,” Daniel said. He glanced over at the men in question. “It was like they kept forgetting I was there.”

“Well, it's rude but-”

“Then they asked me if I'd ever had a concussion, because as this was an action show, such things should be impossible.”

“Ah.”

“Yes.”

“Right. Well. When we get back, we'll ship them directly off to Fraiser. She'll figure out what's wrong with them. Maybe they have amnesia.”

“I don't think amnesia works that way, Jack.”

Jack shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

“I'll just…keep an eye on them,” Daniel said.

“Good idea. You do that.” Jack headed back for the rest of the group. With any luck, they'd get home soon and that would be the end of it.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The rush off the ship had been mostly uneventful, which was kind of surprising. Sam couldn't figure out the Trickster's game with this show. It was markedly short on the pain, humiliation, and pointed-ness of the others, although it had its moments. Like now.

Apparently Sam had gained a fan. It was novel, but unnerving. Normally, being found over a headless body while covered in blood and in close proximity to the murder weapon did not endear you to people.

Hell, it'd been weird enough when everyone had just accepted the killing and just raised eyebrows at the method, but you know- fiction. The kid though- he reminded Sam of a dog he'd briefly had. The dog had always looked hopeful whenever there was food around, as if it didn't really expect much food to fall to the ground, but wanted to be prepared just in case it did. The kid followed Sam around with a similarly hopeful expression, as if he wanted to make sure that if there were a sudden outbreak of beheading, he wouldn't miss it. Not that that was likely. The clearing was pretty much deserted except for the...earthlings. Most of the soldiers were standing point around the great stone ring. One of the scientists was pushing buttons on a mushroom plinth in front of it. The ring made clonking noises every time she did, but nothing else happened. Everyone else was standing around like they were, alert but idle.

“Hey, uh, kid-” Sam tried.

“Sal'ek.” He looked disappointed that Sam didn't know. Sam felt like he'd just kicked a puppy, a puppy wearing medieval robot armor.

“Right, Sal'ek.” He tried smiling, but that just encouraged him.

“How many heads have you taken?” Sal'ek asked with a little bit more enthusiasm than Sam thought healthy, considering the subject. The kid couldn't be any more than 15- and yeah, that was definitely a bloodthirsty kind of age, but usually in a theoretical, video-game kind of way. Not an actual, “hey, look, that guy just chopped someone's head off, cool!” kind of way.

It also kind of depressed Sam that he didn't know the answer to the question.

“Not...that many.”

Sal'ek just nodded, as if impressed by Sam's humility. Fantastic. At this rate, Sam was going to end up with the kid impressed on him like a duckling. He was a teenager. There were several beautiful women in the clearing. It should not be this hard to convince him to go glom on to someone else. Sam sighed. He heard Dean laugh treacherously, coughing in an attempt to hide it. It gave him an idea.

“You know,” Sam tried, “My brother's killed lots of things.” Sal'ek turned towards Dean and gave him a thorough-once over, as if trying to decide if Sam was pulling his leg.

“Oh, sure,” Dean said, not missing a beat, “but Sam here? He's kickass.” Sam glared at his brother.

Sal'ek brightened up, but looked a little confused. “Kick...ass?”

Without missing a beat, Dean said, “He kicks a lot of asses. Hands out a lot of beat downs. You get it?” The boy nodded.

“He's got better things to do, Dean,” Sam said. “Shouldn't you be helping everyone else?”

“No,” answer Sal'ek after a full three seconds of apparently careful thought.

Dean smirked. “Don't let Sam's modesty fool you. He's always cutting off heads. In fact, one time he did it with his bare hands and some wire.”

“That was just a vampire,” Sam said, casually as possible. “But Dean- he's killed gods before, too. By impaling them.”

Sal'ek considered this. Dean gave Sam a calculating look, upping the ante.

“It was a joint effort,” Dean said dismissively. “But it was nothing compared to the time Sam here fried the rugaru that was _eating_ me.” Sal'ek looked at Sam with a new appreciation. He was beginning to look like a spectator at a tennis match. If the kid wasn't careful, he was going to end up with whiplash.

“And you killed the ghouls who were eating _me_.” Sam fired back. He turned to the kid. “He bashed in its head with a blunt object-”

“-candlestick-”

“ _And_ it wasn't the first time, either.” _Let's see how Dean tops that,_ Sam thought.

“Yeah, but what about Paris Hilton? You cut her head off with an axe. She was a god. Sort of,” Dean said to the kid, as if that settled the matter.

“Dean killed a djinn- that's like a god- while half dead from blood loss.” Sam cut in. “With a knife.”

The boy raised his eyebrows in a fine approximation of his idol. “And you do not use any weapon other than blades and your hands?”

Sam shrugged. “Sometimes. Shooting doesn't work for everything.”

“We're...specialists,” Dean added.

The kid nodded and seemed to find this an acceptable line of reasoning. He chewed his lip thoughtfully for a second, digesting the rest of it. He finally pursed his lips and said, “I have never heard of Paris Hilton. How many served her?”

Dean snorted. “I don't know about serving-”

“What he means is, she wasn't that kind of god,” Sam added quickly.

“I do not understand. You do not fight the Goa'uld?”

Sam shrugged. “Today we do- I guess.”

The boy opened his mouth to ask another question when the scientist at the plinth shouted. Sam turned to look. The ring made one last loud clamping noise and then a huge jet of water shot out of it before it collapsed back into the familiar horizontal puddle was back, as luminous and breathtaking as it had been the last time.

Sam felt more than saw his brother step up next to him because he was unwilling to look away.

“Holy shit,” Dean breathed. Sam didn't reply.

The blood, the fighting, even the bad guys- it wasn't so different from their real lives. This, though. He wanted to treasure it. The wonder and the beauty and the marvel of this supposed gate.... He could almost pretend that it was more than just some cheap CGI dreamed up by a two-bit writer. He wanted to believe that such things actually existed. And that some day, even if it were buried under a shit ton of misery and mayhem, they'd find something to equal it.

And it hurt to think that they probably never would.

The cranky officer broke the spell by stomping over. “Winchester! Are you going to gawk all day or what? It's not like you haven't seen it before.” His tone wasn't sarcastic, but his manner was. And Sam caught a hint of something inquisitive in the otherwise innocent statement. He studied the man's face. It gave nothing away, but Sam was put in mind of Colombo and his last minute questions.

The question had been addressed to both of them, but Sam answered, “No sir,” before Dean was tempted to say something sarcastic back.

“Alright,” the colonel said, staring Sam directly in the eye, as if taking his measure. “Get a move on.”

Sam looked over at the small crowd assembling in front of the giant glowing puddle. The civilians were fussing over equipment that soldiers were manhandling. They trickled through the gate in ones and twos. It swallowed them whole, leaving nothing but greedy ripples in their wake.

Sam hesitated, unsure what their role was. Judging by the look on Dean's face, he felt the same way.

When neither of them moved, the colonel continued. “Giddy-up. Depart. Hit the road. Run along. By which I mean to say, _Go._ ”

Dean opened his mouth to say something.

The colonel beat him to it. “And yes, that was an order. You may remember them from your training.” Dean shut his mouth. With that, the man turned around and headed back to towards the rest of the group, barking orders along the way.

Dean watched him go, his expression puzzled.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

Dean seemed to shake himself free of some reverie. “Nothing. So. Do we go or what?”

Sam shrugged. “Bad guy dead, hostages rescued...I'm surprised we're still here. The credits should be rolling.”

Dean hesitated. “Yeah. Weird,” he murmured. But then he turned to the kid. “So, I guess you're coming with us?”

Sal'ek nodded. His eyes shone. “And I will join in the fight against the false gods. Perhaps I may train with your masters and learn the battle arts of the Tauri.” The last was said with a pleading, hopeful note to it.

“Sure,” Dean said. He actually sounded supportive of the kid. “But take your time. I mean, you can't rush these things.”

“But the great struggle is _now,_ ” Sal'ek argued, as if afraid he might blink and miss it.

Sam watched them from the corner of his eye, keeping his face turned towards the crowd still standing around the 'gate', arranging the transport of the equipment. Dimly, he could see Dean smile down at the teenager. It didn't reach his eyes. He shook his head. “It's not your problem.”

“It must be fought! It is the duty of every Jaffa,” Sal'ek insisted with all the passion of youth. Sam was sure it was meant as a protest, but it was fell closer to petulance than anything else.

“Except that it's never over. There will always be something else to fight, kid.” Dean let out a breath. It wasn't quite a sigh.

The kid stared at him for a second, just blinking. It didn't make sense to him. It probably wouldn't make sense to any teenager, fictional or not. Sam would have been more concerned by the apparent failure of his plan to attach his young fan to Dean instead if he wasn't more worried about the fact that Dean was bonding with the make-believe plucky sidekick. He turned to face his brother.

“Dean-” he began, but then there was a familiar b-movie death ray noise, followed by an explosion of earth and light to his left. He immediately dropped down, as did Dean and the kid. He looked around to try and see where the shooter was. There- up on the ridge- was the old man they'd robbed and a few of his friends.

The old soldier did not look happy.

More blasts from the staffs followed suit.

“Shit,” Sam cursed under his breath, “shit-shit-shit.”

“Sokar take you,” the old man shouted. He was still dressed in the tunic. He punctuated his words with more blasts. Luckily for them, he seemed too pissed to bother with aiming much at them personally.

The rat-a-tat-tat barking of machine gun fire boomed out over the clearing as the soldiers opened up against the attackers. It did not do much good; the old man and his few troops held the ridge.

“Fall back to the 'Gate!” called the colonel. The scientists and civilians ran straight into the portal, still lugging as much of the equipment as they could carry. The portal gave an audible 'gloop' even over the weapons fire as they did.

Sam popped up and began running across the field, Dean close on his heels. Gouts of fire from the staff were only barely avoided as they zig-zagged and dodged their way to the portal. The boy followed, seeming far more comfortable and nimble in the situation than Sam would have given him credit for. But he had been drafted after all, Sam supposed.

They reached the plinth only moments later, the other soldiers still laying down cover fire. The colonel waved them through. Dean glanced back at the old man, who shouted something and fired again. Sam saw it in slow motion as Dean twisted and dragged the boy around until he was out of the line of fire. Seconds later, one of the blasts hit Dean in the chest. He staggered and fell backward.

 _Goddamn it, throwing his life away is so ingrained he's now doing it for imaginary people,_ Sam thought, suddenly furious.

The boy stared at Dean in shock as one of the other expedition members manhandled him backwards into the gate. Sam grabbed at his brother and dragged him towards and through the portal. He thought heard Dean mutter, “Damn it, not again.”

And then they were through, before Sam had time to brace himself.

It was nothing like Sam expected. He'd been unconsciously expecting something wetter. Something tactile. But it wasn't. He felt, for a moment, as if ever atom of his being was scattered across the entire universe and then slammed back together.

He staggered down a metal ramp in a large concrete room. Off to the side, the other expedition members were still fussing over the equipment as it was carried out through a big door and into a passageway. There was no sign of the kid. The far wall had a high window, from which several people watched. Below it were about two dozen soldiers, all crouched in readiness. As soon as they saw him, their guns flew up in a metallic crescendo and pinned then with their sights. Dean chose this moment to finally pass out. Sam tried to grip him more tightly, to keep him from falling to the ground, while holding out his one free hand in a defensive gesture.

A staff blast broke through the gate and narrowly missed Sam before blowing a hole into a concrete walls. He couldn't help but flinch, though had the soldiers chosen to fire, he'd have already been dead.

The colonel and the last few soldiers suddenly appeared behind him, including the pretty blonde woman Sam had seen earlier on the ship. She was holding one arm stiffly against her side. “Close the iris!” she shouted.

There was a scything sound. Sam looked up and back. A metal shutter appeared and scissored shut, blocking the portal from view.

“We need a medical team down here,” the colonel said, looking at Dean.

“They're on their way,” a voice said over the PA. “Colonel O'Neill, what the hell happened?”

“Ambushed as we left, sir.” O'Neill winced. “To tell you the truth, General, it's just been that kind of day.”

“O'Neill,” said a large black man for whom Sam suspected neither the term 'African' nor 'American' applied. “I want to check on the boy.” The colonel nodded, and the man strode down the ramp and followed the civilians out the door.

O'Neill watched him leave, and then seemed to notice Sam's defensive posture as well as the soldiers, whose weapons were still trained on Sam. Sam tried very hard to stay perfectly still. Dean wasn't making it easier, seemingly getting heavier with every passing second.

“Captain,” O'Neill said to one of the soldiers, “Is there a reason you're not standing down?”

“Sir,” said the captain, looking uneasy but still not lowering his gun, “Are they friendly?”

The colonel gave the man a scathing look. “I don't know, captain, I hardly know them.” To Sam, he said, “Winchester, are you friendly? Would you lend me a cup of sugar? Play a nice game of cards?” The sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Um,” Sam said, a little confused, “Sure? Sir,” he added.

“There you have it, captain.” O'Neill waved a hand, and the soldier cautiously lowered his weapon. The others soon followed suit. Sam lowered his free hand and used it to reinforce his grip on Dean, who had been slowly but steadily listing to the right. He glanced back up and caught Dr. Jackson staring at him, his face a mixture of puzzlement and deepening concern.

There was a rattle of wheels and the sound of hurried footsteps. Sam turned his head just in time to see the medical team burst into the room. In moments, he found himself bustled off the ramp as they loaded his brother onto a gurney, the doctor calling vitals as she went. “Get him to the infirmary,” she said firmly, and then briskly walked over to the blonde soldier, who Sam vaguely remembered the colonel calling 'Carter'- the one Dr. Jackson had been looking for.

The doctor gently took her arm and rolled back the sleeve. The woman- Carter?- hissed.

“Sorry, Sam,” the doctor said, causing Sam to do a double take. “It could be broken. You're going to need x-rays. Let's get you to the infirmary, too.” She looked over at Dr. Jackson, who was still holding his side in a way all too familiar to Sam.

“Thrown into wall,” he said. “I'll be fine.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow in a gesture of perfect skepticism, but Dr. Jackson waved her off. “You've got your hands full. I'll stop by in a few minutes. Promise.” He smiled at her. She gave him an extremely knowing look. “I'll hold you to that. Come on, Sam.”

The two women walked off, albeit slowly. ( _Samantha?)_ Carter winced with every step.

“Wait, what about my brother?” Sam called, jogging after them. The noise of twenty four guns being aimed at him drew him up short. The doctor threw a sympathetic look back at him. “I'll let you know as soon as I can,” she said. And then she was gone. Sam wanted to chase after her, but the two dozen guns pointed at his back severely limited his options.

He turned around slowly to face the soldiers, hands out just to be on the safe side. “Whatever I must have done to piss you guys off, I'm sorry,” he tried. Their faces remained impassive.

“Jumpy much, boys?” added the colonel, who had come up behind him. “Remind me to never show up in costume.”

“Sir.” said the captain.

“Jack-” started Dr. Jackson, stepping closer. Sam was beginning to feel a little crowded.

“What is it, Daniel,” demanded the colonel, his attention still on the soldiers.

Jackson made a face, as if he were unhappy with his options. “I don't remember him-” a roll of his head confirmed that he was referring to Sam- “at the briefing anymore.”

Sam tried to parse this, and failed. He wasn't alone. O'Neill blinked. “Run that by me again? And try to make sense this time.”

“I remembered it while we were off-world. I don't remember it now.”

“Christ, Daniel, don't tell me this amnesia is catching.”

“I'm serious, Jack.”

Sam got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Amnesia? What?” he asked. No one listened to him. He felt like he'd just tumbled into free-fall, with all the rules he'd taken for granted suddenly suspended.

“Colonel!” called a voice. It was Major Pierce, and his face was set into something cold. Before Sam could ask what the hell was going on, the man drew a snake-gun and fired.

It hurt more than blue light should. He heard Pierce saying, “He's a fake,” and then Sam was falling, first to the floor, then into nothingness.

* * *

Jack looked down at the man lying unconscious on the ground.

“I didn't know you were such a fan of overkill, Major.”

“Sir,” Pierce protested, “We were risking a foothold situation.”

Trigger-happy idiot. “Oh, really, Major? How so?”

“Sir, the memories were-” Pierce began.

Jack didn't let him finish. “Because I'm not sure how, even if he isn't SG personnel, you not recognizing him anymore would count as foothold.”

“But-”

“That was what you were going to say, wasn't it?”

“Yes, but-” the major tried again. Jack continued on as if he hadn't.

“Granted, if you did recognize him and he wasn't part of your team, it'd be a problem, but then you wouldn't know that, would you?” Jack put as much bite in it as possible.

The major blinked several times. Apparently Jack had managed to lose him. Daniel wasn't any help- he was tapping out his fingers like he was trying to solve something. Jack sighed.

“There's a protocol for a reason, Pierce. Next time, do us all a favor and follow it.”

“Sir, I had reason to believe-” The man began. He looked confounded by Jack's reaction. Maybe he expected a parade.

“I don't want to hear it, Pierce. Get him to one of the guest quarters. I'll inform Hammond.”

“Yes, sir.” Pierce did not look happy at the prospect. Jack didn't blame him. The young man looked heavy. Maybe that'd teach him to think before shooting.

Jack turned and walked off, motioning to Daniel to follow him. The sooner they could get the bottom to this, the better.

 


	5. Interlude

Castiel, Gabriel mused, was a problem. He'd find it amusing if the little pissant wasn't such a giant pain in the ass. At first, he'd tried just walling him away in fantasy worlds. It hadn't been ideal, but he had a cover to maintain, after all. But Castiel had just kept coming.

He could have just swatted him like the pest he was. Rumor held that Raphael already had. If it were true, Castiel was looking awfully good for a greasy smear on the wall. That might mean that killing him was pointless. He doubted Raphael missed. Besides, smiting wasn't his style. Not anymore.

So he'd just thrown wall after wall at him. Castiel plowed through them all, determined to reach the Winchesters. Gabriel was forced to take greater action, which pretty much blew his cover. Castiel had to know something was up. But that was okay. Gabriel just needed to keep Castiel busy long enough to finish up. Except it wasn't that easy. The little angel who could was like a bloodhound after those two. Gabriel had briefly considered actually turning him into a bloodhound, but figured it'd backfire, one way or another. He didn't need to add any more soulful puppy eyes to the mix. One pair was enough.

So Gabriel had come up with a solution; It wasn't elegant, but what the hell. He chucked the Winchesters down a wormhole. It wasn't the first time he'd pulled that trick, though with the theme he had going, he'd had to finesse the situation a little to ensure they didn't catch on. Castiel would not be able to find them, now that they were no longer in the warehouse. All in all, it was a perfect solution. After that, it was simplicity itself to deal with the pipsqueak.

With a thought, Gabriel flicked away from the imprisoned Castiel and back to where he had last left the Winchesters. It was time to get back to their _ir_ regularly scheduled programing. A few dozen hours playing Wiley E. Coyote might do the trick. If not, at least it'd be amusing.

...And it would have to wait. He looked down at the planet. Pieces of burning mothership were still raining down to the surface, but other than that, there was no sign of the Winchesters or the SG team he'd plugged them into.

It was a surprise, considering the fact that SG-15 was supposed to be here for days, doing nothing but poking at funny shaped rocks.

“What do you think you are doing?” demanded something. It wasn't actually spoken. It wasn't on the physical plane, so things were a little...abstract. It materialized a little more fully. “You should not-” it began, but the words froze in its non-existent throat. If it had had a body, it would have gulped.

Gabriel grabbed at the little light before it had time to vamoose. He added a little 'yoink!' sound effect for good measure.

“Hey there,” Gabriel said. “Guess it's your lucky day!” He got the distinct impression that it disagreed, but all it needed was a little adjustment of its perspective. “Help me out and maybe I'll forget to flatten you for existing.”

“Look,” said the ascended being, “We've not been interfering.”

“It's a little too late for that, isn't it? An eternity's worth of interference doesn't just vanish.” He waggled his eyebrows. “That put you in the doghouse, big time. Guess simply being abominations isn't enough for some people, is it?”

The ascended being seemed to take umbrage at that. “We put it all back,” it insisted. “You can't have missed that.” Cute. He'd almost think it was trying to grow a backbone.

“Yeah, well you did a lousy job of that.” Gabriel snorted. “Set up shop a couple million years in the past, and expect no one will notice. Do you even know how long it's going to take to clean up all your little messes? Forever. Literally.” He drew out the word. “But, luckily for you, I'm out of the smiting business.” He smiled beatifically. The being was apparently not comforted. “So, why don't you just fill me in on who managed to screw up my nice quiet corner of history and maybe we can forget all about it. What d'ya say?”

“Anubis,” the thing squeaked. Sort of.

“Him? He's back? When you guys screw the pooch, that dog stays screwed, doesn't it?”

“We felt the change,” the being said hurriedly, “and thought someone must be interfering. That's why I came. To stop it. Anubis could have felt it too. He sent one of his ships.”

“Oh, please. You guys _are_ the disturbance in the force. I'm surprised no one's gotten around to wiping you out. _Anubis,_ ” he said, “Whose bright idea was that?” He eased his hold. The being fled the instant he did.

Gabriel briefly considered chasing after it and nailing it to the wall or something- it could be his own little glow-in-the-dark trophy- but figured it could wait. He needed to get down to business. It wouldn't be hard to find the boys- either they were back on Earth, or they were bits of barbecue down below. If they were on Earth, extricating them without giving the game away would take some thought, and if they were barbecue? Well. Finding all the pieces might take a while.

The things he did for the edification of others. If he weren't already an angel, he'd be a saint.

 


	6. Chapter 6

  
  
It had been more than a few hours, and they still hadn't gotten to the bottom of it. In fact, the more they learned, the less sense everything made. Jack hated enigmas. They tended to remain stubbornly mysterious no matter how much you poked at them. He'd had a long day. He wanted to go home and catch some sleep, but that was unlikely to happen until progress was made.

They were going over it _again,_ this time repeating a lot of it for the benefit of General Hammond and Dr. Fraiser, who hadn't been around for the first thousand editions of “what we don't know about the Winchesters.”

Progress was beginning to look a little unlikely.

Jack wasn't the only one suffering from it, at least. Daniel was propping his head up with one hand. He looked like he wanted to set his head down and take a nap. Jack didn't blame him. Carter was sitting stiffly, her sprained arm bound up in a navy sling, but her eyes made her frustration apparent. Hammond's frustration was more obvious, but then, he was the general. Yelling was part of his job description. Teal'c looked...stoic. But he always did. Only Jacob, still around after the cluster-f that involved the mini-him, managed to look alert and engaged. But Jack had caught him coughing suspiciously a time or two. Selmak was probably cracking jokes, Jack thought sourly, turning his attention back to what was being said.

“Their blood work comes back normal,” Dr. Fraiser was saying.

It wasn't surprising. The blood work coming back abnormal would have been too easy. Normal meant the mystery only deepened.

“They have markers unique to the Tauri in their DNA,” Jacob added, “We're pretty sure those boys are from Earth.”

“That's something we already knew,” Daniel mumbled into his hand. He sat up with an 'oof' and reached over for the files. He flipped through them perfunctorily. “Dean Winchester. Couple dozen misdemeanors to his name, spread out all across the states. Vandalism, traffic violations, a few drunk-and-disorderlies- mostly from bar fights. And then there's the grave desecration, and a couple dozen cases of alleged impersonation. He's a small-time conman with some weird hobbies. They've never really managed to pin much on him. He's made a habit of being a couple states over by the time the shit hits the fan. And then there's his brother, Sam, a sophomore at Stanford with a squeaky clean record- adult record, anyway – and a full scholarship. The only thing they would seem to have in common is their father, John Winchester, formerly of Kansas, current whereabouts unknown.”

“Formerly of Kansas? How long ago was that?” Hammond asked.

Daniel sighed, then shuffled some papers around. “A very long time, General. The Winchesters have been gypsies for the past twenty-odd years. Their father uprooted the family and disappeared in 1983, after the death of his wife. They pop up all over the country after that. He apparently financed his new life with fraud.” Daniel turned a paper over. “Lots and lots of fraud,” he added, scanning down the sheet. “There were a couple of complaints to Child Protective Services, but they never stayed in one place long enough for anything to come of it.”

“Impersonation,” Carter said, stifling a yawn, “Maybe that's it.”

“That seems unlikely,” General Hammond said.

“I agree,” Jack said. He drummed his fingers on the table. “The Russians could maybe do it, but two civilians with no intel? I can't see it, sir.”

“They mentioned breaking into a Russian embassy, once, for a 'job',” Daniel pointed out, miming the air quotes.

“That would not explain how they ended off-world, nor how SG-15 came to regard them as familiar,” Teal'c said.

“What does SG-15 have to say on the matter?” Hammond asked.

“Well, sir,” said Dr. Fraiser, “Whatever it was seems to have faded. They described returning to the SGC as waking up from a dream. They remember having very specific memories...but they've faded. They remember _knowing_ that they'd been on missions, through trainings, in briefings with them. Pierce remembered fighting the placement of “Doctor Samuel Winchester” on the team, and that they had a knack for trouble.”

“That part seems accurate,” Jack grumbled. He toyed with a piece of paper for a second, then began folding it up into a miniature paper airplane, listening with half an ear as Dr. Fraiser continued her report.

“And that's not all. Some of Dr. Colma's false memories were quite...explicit.” That raised a few eyebrows around the table, Jack noted.

“But,” she sighed, “all of their tests check out. No abnormalities. No sign of toxins, drugs, or other chemicals. No nanobots, nothing strange on the MRI.”

“What about the two men, Doctor. Was there anything unusual there?” Hammond asked hopefully.

“Yes and no, sir.” She flipped through some papers. “Dean Winchester- his wounds were consistent with the damage inflicted by a staff blast. Luckily for him, the armor saved him from the worst of it. It's all in line with the reports. There were some notable abnormalities, but nothing that would shed any light on this, General. Just more mysteries.” She rummaged around in a folder and pulled out an x-ray.

“Given the nature of the fight with Mithras, I wanted to make sure our patients hadn't broken any ribs. Neither of them had, but I discovered that they both have identical, ah, disfigurements in the bone.” She held the x-ray up to the light. The result was...unexpected. It looked like scrimshaw.

Around the table, stares turned incredulous. Even Daniel remained speechless.

“What in the hell?” Jack said, breaking the silence.

“I haven't the slightest idea, sir,” Fraiser said, turning the x-ray in the light.

“And it couldn't have been tampered with?” Hammond asked.

“After the first set, I redid them myself, General.”

Jacob craned his neck, trying to get a better view. “It almost looks like the symbols were carved into the bone,” he said.

“As far as I can tell, they were.” Janet answered. “But there were no signs of trauma, fractures, or surgery.”

“It's not impossible,” Jacob said, shaking his head, “But it would take some serious time and effort. I'm not sure why it'd be worth it.”

“I think I recognize the symbols,” Daniel murmured. He held out a hand. “May I?”

She handed him the x-ray. He frowned down at it, then held it back up to the light. He frowned some more.

“What is it, Daniel?” Jack finally asked, impatient.

“I could be wrong; it's been a long time since I've seen them. But I think it's Enochian.”

“And that is...?”

“Weird. Very...Weird.” Daniel studied the symbols some more.

“Oh, come on, Daniel. This wouldn't be the first time we found some remnant of some ancient language. The Goa'uld liked variety.”

“This isn't ancient,” Daniel corrected absently. “It's the language of the angels.”

Hammond had taken a sip of water as Daniel had spoken. It was a mistake. “What?” he sputtered. “Did I understand you right, Dr. Jackson? _Angels_?”

“Sort of,” Daniel conceded. He handed the x-ray back to Dr. Fraiser and rubbed his temples. He sat up. His next words were delivered in the cadences of a lecture.

“In the late 16th century, a man by the name of John Dee became obsessed with the idea of communicating with angels.” He quirked his lips into an ironic smile, continuing, “He transcribed into his journals texts he claimed had been dictated to him by the angels in their native tongue, and written in the original alphabet. He believed it to be the original language, the precursor to all human languages.”

“Perhaps it was some alien race communicating with him under that guise,” Teal'c suggested.

“It definitely sounds plausible,” Jacob agreed.

“No,” Daniel said. “He got most of it from a man named Edward Kelley, widely regarded today to be a fraud. As to the 'language' itself... there's nothing particularly unique about it. The syntax closely resembles that of English. It's not real.”

“I'm thinking it is, Daniel. Someone carved it into their _ribs,_ ” Jack said. Daniel shrugged.

“They seemed relieved by the x-rays,” Dr. Fraiser offered, “But I can't confirm anything. They both claimed to have no idea how they got there.”

“This is weird, even for us,” Jack muttered.

“That's not all, sir,” Janet said to him apologetically. She pulled out a photograph, which she slid across the table.

“That's of Dean Winchester's arm.”

“It's a hand print,” Carter said, confused, “Burned into his skin?”

“That would be my guess. But such a burn would not have left clean lines. The healing process alone would have led to far more scarring, not just a raised mark.”

Jack grabbed at the photo and spun it around to Teal'c. “Ever seen anything like that?”

“I have not, O'Neill.”

“What about the-,” Jack gestured to his forehead.

“A healing device is necessary,” Teal'c stated calmly.

“When did he get it?” Carter cut in. “Could he have gotten it while on the planet?”

“I suppose it might be possible,” Janet conceded, “I asked him about it. He mostly evaded the question, but he did say he got it a year ago.”

“What about his brother?” Carter suggested.

“Nothing quite as dramatic as that. I saw some marks on his arms when I took blood samples. I might have assumed they were from an attempted suicide, if not for the angles involved. Someone else did it to him, Major.”

“What did he say?” Jacob asked.

She smiled wryly. “Just that they were old battle scars.” She paused. “There was one thing. He's got a minor concussion. But what's concerning is that when I tested him, he didn't know correct year, or the president.”

“Amnesia?” Jack asked hopefully.

“Not exactly, sir, no. He thought it was 2009.”

Daniel frowned and shuffled through his file again. “Look at this,” he said, sliding a photo across the table. Fraiser picked it up.

“When was this taken?” she asked.

“Two weeks ago. It's a print out from the campus newspaper.”

She frowned and passed it to General Hammond.

“I don't understand, Dr. Jackson,” he said.

“Let me, sir,” Fraiser said. She stood up and walked over to a computer, and then brought up the security footage from the guest quarters. Sam was sitting on the bed and staring at the door. He looked broody...and a hell of a lot older than the kid in the photo. Bulkier, too.

“General, I think I speak for all of us by asking, what the _hell_ is going on here?”

Jacob stared off into the distance for a second, apparently conversing with his symbiote. “Sam, could it be time travel, or something to do with an alternate universe?”

She shrugged. “We know it's possible, but it still doesn't explain how they ended up P3X-5909, nor how they fit in, nor how they did either of those things without knowing _anything_ about the program or its history.” She tapped her pen against the table in agitation.

“Teal'c,” Hammond tried, “You said they talked to the boy. Did he say anything?”

Teal'c inclined his head. “He said they spoke of slaying many terrible creatures, including gods, though not the Goa'uld.”

“Could they have been lying?”

“Perhaps. If so, I do not believe it was intentional. He cautioned Sal'ek to not to rush into the field of battle, and later shielded the boy with his own body. Those are not the deeds of a dishonorable man, General Hammond.”

“Did any of these things he happened to kill have a name?” Jack asked, idly folding another scrap of paper into a tiny paper airplane. Soon, he'd have enough for a tiny paper Air Force base.

“The boy mentioned but two: vampires, and Paris Hilton.” Teal'c dipped his shoulders in a minute shrug. On him, it was huge. “They mentioned others, but he could not remember.”

“So they're public-service minded vampire-slayers.”

Daniel rubbed his face and tried not to yawn. “Sorry, Jack, but 'The Simple Life' is still scheduled for a second season.”

“Maybe they're just crazy. Have we thought of that?” Jack asked.

“Sure,” Carter answered, “But that still doesn't make any of this make sense, sir.”

“Maybe we're crazy, then.” He pushed his paper airplanes into a row.

“Could be, sir,” she said, looking down at his paper squadron.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “So did we get anything out of them?”

“Not much,” Fraiser said.

“From direct questioning, at least,” Carter amended. “We let them speak alone, but we recorded it.”

“And they didn't maybe expect that, Carter?”

“Honestly, sir? I don't think they cared.”

“That's my impression too, Jack,” Daniel agreed.

Jack looked down the table towards Hammond, who asked, “Did you learn anything, Major?”

“They definitely think this is television, sir, like Daniel said. Sam Winchester was not happy that his brother risked his life to save the plucky sidekick. They argued a bit about their roles, with Dean Winchester saying that it's what the good guys always do, and Sam saying it's the kind of thing that gets everyone but the main characters killed. They don't seem to know how they're supposed to fit in, which I guess means they're as in the dark about all this as we are, sir.”

No one said anything for a minute after that. Jacob broke the silence by saying, “Sam, what if we tried the memory recall device?”

She looked at her father curiously, waiting for him to continue.

“It might help us get a better idea of what we're dealing with here,” he said. “Their memories could be false. If so, it might reveal the real ones. And if they are real, it might explain how they got here.”

She nodded. “Janet, what do you think?”

“For Sam Winchester? It's a bad idea. With the head wound, I don't want to add anything on top of it. But if Jacob is willing to treat Dean with the healing device, I see no reason not to.”

“I could heal both of them,” Jacob suggested, but Fraiser was already shaking her head.

“Head wounds are tricky. I don't want to throw the potential complications from the recall device into the mix.”

General Hammond looked relieved to finally have a course of action. He turned to Carter, “Major Carter, why don't you go down and see if you can talk to our guest and explain the purpose of the device. Jacob, if you could go with her and see that the young man is fit enough for the procedure?”

Jacob nodded and then pushed his chair back. “Sure thing, George. Let's see if we can't get to the bottom of this.”

“Sir,” Carter nodded and stood up as well. She and her father left the room, their footsteps echoing down the hall. Dr. Fraiser excused herself and followed them out.

Jack waited a second then moved to get up. “Well, sir, if that's all, I think I'll-”

“Talk to Sam Winchester,” the general finished for him.

“I'll just talk to Sam Winchester.” Jack echoed.

“See if you can learn anything else from him. He didn't seem to respond to Teal'c,” Hammond nodded to Teal'c, who inclined his head in return, “And I'm hoping you might get through to him.”

Jack stood. “I'll just...go and do that, then, sir.” He hurried out. Behind him, he could hear Hammond say, “Now, Dr. Jackson, I had a few more questions for you...” Jack picked up his pace, happy to leave Daniel and Teal'c to it.

* * *

Sam put on her best friendly smile before entering the infirmary. “ _Hi, could you attach this thing to your head? We'd like to rummage through your memories,”_ was the kind of thing that tended to put people on edge. It required a certain degree of tact.

“Hi!” she said brightly, walking into the room. Dean blinked at her in bemusement. Maybe she needed more practice.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Winchester?” Janet supplied, stepping out from behind her.

Dean tried to sit up, grimacing. Janet gently restrained him with a hand to his shoulder.

“Like someone tried to carve a lung out with a rusty knife and then cauterized the wound with a blow torch. But other than that, just peachy,” he said.

“That's not too far from the truth,” Janet told him. She gestured to the injury, and when he relaxed, moved in to check the bandages. “Though the armor protected you from the worst of the blast,” she continued, examining the angry and weeping wound. She removed the bandage.

“They just changed that,” he protested.

“Hopefully you won't need it anymore,” she said, smiling. He frowned, not understanding. Jacob stepped forward, then looked down at the wound. He whistled.

“Boy, she wasn't joking, kid. Half an inch lower and that blast would have gone straight through you.”

Dean shrugged one shoulder. He didn't look too concerned by his near miss. “Who are you?”

“Call me Jacob,” he said, “I'm here to help patch you up.”

Dean raised a skeptical eyebrow. Jacob raised his hand, showing Dean the healing device. Dean frowned at it, puzzled. “It's a healing device,” Jacob said. “Just hold still. It'll feel weird, but it shouldn't hurt.” Dean frowned some more as the device buzzed to life, but he didn't protest. When it was over, he poked at the newly healed skin. “That thing must come in handy.”

“Not as often as you'd think,” Sam said wryly. “But we're not here just for that, I'm afraid. We need to talk to you.”

“Fine,” Dean said. “But I'm not into pillow talk. Get me some pants, and then we'll chat.”

“That can be arranged,” Janet said dryly. She was amused but didn't want to show it, Sam guessed. Janet spoke to one of the orderlies, who left and then came back a few minutes later with a black t-shirt and the bottom half of someone's green BDU. They backed away to give him some privacy. After a few minutes, he stepped around the curtain, fully dressed.

“Let's help clear out the infirmary,” Sam suggested. “We'll go to one of the conference rooms.”

The walked out. Sam waved off the SF's when they started to follow. She led Dean and her father down a series of corridors before finally turning into a spacious room with a long table and several big swivel chairs. There had been an attempt to soften the room with a few plants and some landscape prints. It was designed to put visiting diplomats at ease. Sam offered Dean a chair and then sat down next to him. Dean fidgeted with a paperclip that had been left on the table for a second, but said nothing.

Jacob, sitting across from them, cleared his throat. “Kid, I'm going to be honest with you. Your presence here has raised some serious questions and has caused quite a lot of panic higher up.”

“Sorry 'bout that,” Dean said roughly, watching them as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sam took that as her cue.

“The Stargate program is quite possibly the greatest secret operation in the history of this country,” she started. “National security doesn't even begin to cover it. I can't tell you how much is at stake.”

Dean closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair. He looked exhausted. “Let me guess. Fate of the galaxy, forces of darkness, the end of the world as we know it.” He glanced up at her.

A smile ghosted across Sam's face. “Something like that, yes.”

“And Roman gods in Egyptian spaceships.”

“They're not gods,” Jacob corrected, a little sharply.

“That doesn't make it less weird, man.” Dean said.

Sam smiled in what she hoped was a friendly and helpful matter. “Wait until you meet the Asgard- though they're good guys, all things considered- and then talk to me about weird. You get used to it,” she said with a smile. “As to the Goa'uld- they're not such good guys. They're parasites and cultural scavengers,” she explained. “They take human hosts and have some advanced technologies at their disposal, but they're not gods.”

Jacob dipped his head down, and when he looked up, it was Selmak who spoke. “They take on the identities of deities to further the subjugation of those they've taken as slaves. They're petty, depraved, and cruel. They'll do anything to crush those that oppose them, and for that reason this planet and its people are at risk.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Dean spat, bolting upright and turning to face Jacob head-on. His body was coiled and tense, ready to strike.

Selmak dipped his head. “Sorry about that,” Jacob said to Sam. “Selmak got a little worked up.”

Sam stood and moved towards Dean, placing her body between him and her father. She held her hands up, and said in a placating tone, “We probably should have warned you.” She waved a hand at her father. “This is my dad, Jacob,” she paused. “And that was his symbiote, Selmak.”

“You've got one of those things in you?” Dean demanded. No one could say he was slow on the uptake. His posture hadn't relaxed at all.

“Selmak is of the Tok'ra. They are enemies of the Goa'uld. It's...different. They only take volunteers.”

Dean looked directly at Jacob. “You consented? To be a meat suit?” Something between disgust and amazement filled his face.

“Interesting phrasing, but no. It's like being married,” Jacob quipped, trying to cut some of the tension, “But without the mother-in-law.”

Dean relaxed a little.

“This is an unusual situation for us,” Sam apologized. “Normally, you'd have to sign about fifty non-disclosure agreements before you could even hear the name 'Stargate', but that seems to be moot at this point. Regardless, your presence here represents a huge breach of security. We're not accusing you of anything, but need to know how it happened.”

“I told you, we've got no idea. Maybe it's like the colonel said, amnesia.”

“I suggest you cooperate, kid,” Jacob added. “The Pentagon has been known to overreact in the face of the unknown.”

“Is this where you break out the thumbscrews?” Dean said, his posture suddenly very aggressive.

Sam held up a hand. “No. I can understand if you're reluctant to say anything because it sounds crazy. Believe me, we deal in crazy every single day.”

Dean glanced sideways at her father. “No kidding. But sweetheart, there's no way I can explain this one to you.”

Sam arched an eyebrow at him. “It's Major, Mr. Winchester,” she said.

“Fine, whatever.”

“In any case, we don't need you to explain,” she continued.

He stared at her quizzically. “What?”

She held up her hand and showed him the device. “This is a memory-recall device. By itself, it enhances memories and helps recall even buried and subconscious ones. Attached to a holographic projector, we can actually see those memories.”

Dean froze. Sam had expected reluctance, maybe nervousness, but not this.

She continued, but softened her tone, “We'd like to use it to discover how exactly you ended up here. It's completely safe, and practically painless,” she added.

He swallowed, and his face went ashen. “No.” His voice was rough. It sounded as if the word had been torn out of his throat with fish hooks. He had a death grip on the back of the chair, which he'd spun around, putting it between them. “The answer's no.”

“It's harmless,” Jacob tried to assure him. “It can be set to only show memories as they come to mind.”

“No.” His jaw was set in a stubborn line, but there was a tremor in his voice. He put her in mind of men in combat, whose panic was only held back by training and sheer force of will. The change in his demeanor shocked her. She had not expected terror, not from someone who'd faced not one but two master Jaffa in hand-to-hand combat without a second thought, at least according to Daniel.

She glanced over to her father, who shook his head and shrugged.

“You really had me going there for moment,” Dean said, and his voice was soft and dangerous. Sam was taken aback, but it didn't seem to be directed at them. “I'd half thought- you even had _me_ convinced that-” he broke off, licking his lips, unwilling to voice whatever he'd been about to say. Dean looked away from them and glared around the room, finally fixing his gaze on the ceiling.

“But you can forget it, you bastard. I'm not doing it. You hear me, you son of a bitch? I'm not playing. You can just fuck off.” His tone was immensely bitter, and his expression was one of fury and fear and defiance intermingled. After a few seconds, he shakily dropped back into his chair.

“Dean,” she began, not sure what to say. But it didn't matter.

He crossed his arms, stared down at the table, and refused to say anything to them after that.


	7. Chapter 7

Jack nodded to the SFs guarding the guest quarters, then knocked on the door before sticking his head in. The young man sprawled loosely on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees and his chin resting on his hands.

“Hey,” Jack said. The young man looked up. “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Coffee? Water?”

Sam rubbed his forehead. “No thanks,” he answered, sounding tired.

“You don't know what you're missing.” Winchester shrugged. “No, really,” Jack continued. “You don't. And you don't want to know, either. The coffee is _terrible_.” He stepped in and shut the door.

“I'm pretty sure that's not how you're supposed to start an interrogation,” the kid said. “And it's usually a two-man job.”

“Interrogation? No interrogation.” He puffed out his cheeks and then blew out a breath. “This is just a, a... _chat._ ”

The kid gave him a look that said clearly that he thought Jack was taking him for a fool. “A chat. Of course.”

“No, really. We just need to know what the hell's going on here, Winchester, that's all. National security, the fate of the world, you know, that kind of thing.” He grabbed the chair from the desk, spun it around, and sat down in it, propping his arms up on the back.

Winchester sat up and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, ok. Whatever.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I really don't know anything-” The kid's face was earnest, and his tone was sincere. It was pretty familiar- for example, see the response any time Carter was asked, “ _What are you guys really up to, under that mountain?”_

So Jack ignored it, interrupting a doubtlessly convincing spiel with, “So, did you see _the Simpsons_ last week?”

Sam's brow wrinkled in confusion. “Uh, no...?”

“It was a good one. I think. I was off-world.” He shrugged. “I'll catch up on it later. Good show, the Simpsons.”

The kid's frown deepened. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, bewildered.

“Not a thing. Just making conversation.” He stared at the kid. The kid stared at him. Sam blinked first.

“Why do people on other planets speak English?” he asked. He seemed genuinely curious, but there was something lurking underneath it, like a smart-assed comment waiting to be born.

Jack waited for a second, then, with as much gravity as he could manage, “Magic.” It was not the answer the kid was expecting, and it stunned him into silence for a second. What could Jack say? It was a gift.

“Wait- W _hat?_ Did you just say- magic?” Sam managed at last, sounding completely exasperated. He sat up straight, abandoning the slouch he'd been cultivating as a way of minimizing his height (or so Jack suspected).

Jack let him hang there for a minute, before conceding with a shrug. “Or, you know, something like that. I've often wondered myself, but if you ask, it tends to set Carter and Daniel off and they'll argue for _hours_.” Sam looked unconvinced. “No, really. Hours.” Jack continued.

Sam said nothing, just glanced away. It was not quite an eye roll. “So. I understand you think we're fictional.” Sam's head snapped back, with neck-breaking speed. Ahah, now he had the kid's attention.

“Don't get me wrong, it makes my life a lot easier. Don't have to worry about non-disclosure agreements being followed. And you know, there's nothing that says 'plausible deniability' like honest-to-god crazy.”

Sam opened his mouth, then shut it again. “We're not crazy.”

“Oh yeah? Sounds pretty crazy to me,” Jack said. He held his hands up in a pacifying gesture. “Just saying, kid.”

“You're the ones fighting aliens pretending to be gods flying around in pyramids, how does that make sense?” Sam asked, exasperated. He'd obviously been expecting logic in this conversation.

Jack shrugged. “It's a fair enough point. Why don't you tell me your story, and then we'll decide which is crazier.”

The kid's cheek twitched. “I thought you said this wasn't an interrogation.”

Jack held his hands up, the picture of innocence. “It's not. I'm just...”

“Making conversation,” the kid finished, and sighed.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Jack didn't mind. Eventually, he tried again. “So Sal'ek tells us you killed Paris Hilton. Not a fan of 'The Simple Life'?” There was silence for another few minutes. “Me either,” Jack tried.

At last, the kid said, “It wasn't really Paris Hilton,” then stopped.

“Oh yeah?” Jack prompted, keeping his posture deliberately relaxed.

Reluctantly, Sam continued, “It was old eastern European forest spirit that took the form of its victims’ idols.” Jack grinned inwardly. Underneath under all the muscle and combat training there was a geek.

“Victims? Forest spirits have victims?”

“It got tired of waiting to be offered human sacrifices and went for the self-serve option.”

“Ah.” Jack waited a beat, then said, “So how do you kill a murderous eastern European forest spirit?”

“An iron axe.” The kid's reluctance was fading as he relaxed. Give a geek an opening, and they'll tell you everything you never wanted to know about their pet subject. God help them if the kid ever ended up spending an extended period of time with Daniel.

“That'd kill most things, I'd think,” Jack said mildly. He inserted a note of false heartiness to his voice. “So. Fan of beheading, are we?”

The kid, whose gaze had drifted back to the ceiling, turned his head sharply and looked at him directly. “What? No.”

“You do seem to do a lot of it.” Jack pointed out.

Sam looked up and away, as if running a mental tally. He gave up eventually. “It's just the job,” he said at last.

“What job is that?” Jack asked. Sam gave him a look. “Just curious,” Jack added.

Sam rolled his eyes, and then said in a voice laced with irony, “Saving people. Hunting things. The Family Business.” He sounded like he was quoting someone. Jack got the idea that Sam wasn't as gung-ho as the motto implied.

“Catchy.”

Sam rolled his shoulders. “My brother used to say it. It's not untrue.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” He twisted his lips into a wry smile. “I always thought he was full of it, 'the family business.' As if we'd even been doing it if- Well. Anyway. I thought he was fooling himself. Making it noble. The 'family business' was nothing more than my father's revenge.”

Jack said nothing, figuring that the kid wasn't really talking to him. After a minute, Sam continued. “The irony is, he was right. It _was_ the family business. Just not on that side of the family.” He smiled sardonically.

“Your mother?” Jack guessed.

“Yeah,” the kid said. He shook his head. “I don't blame her for getting us stuck with this crap. We were all screwed, one way or another.”

“Wow. Depressing,” Jack said after a beat. He raised an eyebrow. “You should swap stories with Daniel.”

The kid smiled then, and it was the first genuine thing he'd seen. “Sorry.”

“It's alright, Winchester.” He tapped his fingers on the chair, and then leaned forward, resting his arms on the chair back. “So, hunting monsters, what's that like?”

The kid made a face and shrugged. “Can't be too different from what you do.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow worthy of Teal'c at that. “Really? Bad guys? Politics? Armies?”

“Ok,” the kid conceded, “Maybe not.” He rubbed his temples. “We definitely don’t have the back up.”

“Everyone's got back-up, Winchester.”

Sam twisted his mouth into something that resembled a smile, bitter and without warmth. “I guess I'm just tired of watching them die. We've got each other. And we've been working with this one....guy.”

“Yeah?” Jack leaned back and cracked his neck.

“He's helped us out of a few tight spots,” Sam admitted. “But he can't seem to get us out of this.” The last was more to himself than anyone else. Jack suddenly understood what Daniel had meant about the Winchesters’ sudden bouts of ignoring everyone.

“So what's 'this'?” Jack asked, trying not to push too hard.

Sam gave him a long and calculating look.

Jack shrugged. “You've told me this much, what's a little more?”

The kid's nostrils flared. “I hate it when shows break the fourth wall. Postmodernism is overdone. And it's nuts.”

“Right, I'll just pretend I understood the rest of that. But crazy? Crazy I understand. Come on, try me.” Jack leaned back with his arms open and his palms up.

Sam stared at him hard. “Fine.” He blew out some pent-up breath. “It's my fault, anyway. We're trying to stop...this thing,” he said. Jack didn't miss the fact he didn't seem to want to elucidate. “And there was this trickster god. I thought he might actually be an _ally_ , can you believe that? After what he did the last time-”

“What'd he do the last time?” Jack asked, interrupting the rant. He wasn't feeling up to a round of self-recrimination.

“Oh.” Sam stopped, and blinked. “Killed my brother only a hundred different times in a hundred different ways in order to 'teach me a lesson.'” Bitterness didn't even begin to cover the tone in his voice.

“Groundhog's day,” Jack prompted. “Those always suck. In any case, you do what you have to do.”

The kid was giving him a very strange look, as if he expected a different answer. “Yeah? Well in this case, doing that got us stuck in some fantasy land based off TV. We've got to 'play our roles' “ - he mimed air quotes - “Or suffer the consequences.”

“Ah.” Jack waved a hand vaguely around. “So that's why all the- fiction... thing. So. Zapped into TVland? What's this guy look like, anyway?”

“Anything he wants.” Sam looked him up and down with a slight tilt to his head- as if considering whether or not he might be this trickster. After a second, he shook his head slightly, as if deciding against it.

Jack took that as his cue. He stood up, stretching a bit theatrically.

“Well, thanks for the chat, Winchester.” He glanced down at his watch. “It was...interesting. But as it happens, I'm due for another round of meetings about all this. You couldn't do me a favor and pop back out of this reality, could you? No? It'd save me a hell of a lot of paperwork.” The kid shrugged. "I wish. Sorry."

Jack walked over to the door, put his hand on the door knob and stopped. He looked back over his shoulder and said, “Look, I'm not sure what's going to happen. But for what it's worth- I think we'll be able to get them to rule out...oh, dissection."

“Um, thanks. I guess,” Sam said doubtfully. But there was something lighter in his eyes.

Without looking back a second time, Jack opened the door and stepped through. One of the SFs shut it behind him. He turned to one of them and said, “Hey, do me a favor. If the kid asks for anything, let me know?' The guard nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Jack hurried down the hall towards Hammond's office. Inside, he found Carter and Jacob standing in front of his Hammond's desk, telling him something and occasionally gesturing unhappily.

“Knock, knock,” he called, lightly tapping on the open doorway. Heads turned in his direction.

“Colonel O'Neill,” General Hammond said. “Come in. Were you able to get anything out of our guest?”

“Not exactly, sir.” Jack glanced over at Carter. “How'd the memory thing go?”

Hammond nodded to Carter, encouraging her to proceed.

“He outright refused it, sir,” Carter said. Her eyes were calm but her frustration was betrayed by the minute wrinkle that indicated she was trying not to clench her teeth.

Jack frowned. “Is he hiding something?”

“I don't think so, Jack,” Jacob answered, stepping aside to let Jack join them.

“He freaked out, sir,” Carter added.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Is that a technical term, Carter?”

“Nearly,” Jacob said. He rolled his head as if trying to work a kink out of his neck. “He had some pretty major issues with it. I can't say it's the first time I've seen somebody react like that. He's got something he's trying awfully hard not to remember.”

“P.O.W.?” Jack asked, looking over and catching his eye.

“That'd be my guess,” Jacob said.

“It would make sense, sir,” Carter agreed, gesturing slightly with one hand as if to indicate that she didn't have a better theory.

Jack pondered it for a second. “Well, that tells us...not much,” Jack concluded.

Carter made a wry face. “And just creates more questions.”

“Which is why we're all eager to hear what you've learned,” General Hammond said, trying to steer the conversation into more productive waters. He picked up his pen and leaned forward expectantly.

“You're not going to like it, sir,” Jack said, wincing a little as he did.

“Tell it to me anyway, Colonel,” Hammond replied, unperturbed.

“Don't say I didn't warn you-” Jack started. The general gave him an impatient look. Jack shifted his weight, considering his words. “Well, sir. He definitely thinks he's in a television show.”

“Could he be suffering from a mental illness?” the general asked.

“Maybe, sir,” Jack replied. “It'd definitely read that way if he went around talking about the program. But I don't know.” He tried not to fidget. “He's got an absolute _doozy_ of an explanation for it, though.”

Carter and Jacob waited patiently for him to continue. The general...not so much.

“And why is that, Colonel?” he asked, sounding a little testy. His pen was still posed over his notes.

“Well, you do know that Sal'ek said they told him they fought monsters, sir,” Jack began, still hesitating.

“Yes, Colonel, I remember that.” The general's patience was beginning to wear thin, which was always a bad thing. So Jack continued, “And that's what he basically said. He said they went after a, a,” Jack waved his hands a vague circle, searching for a better way to put it. He gave up. “...some sort of 'trickster god' – yeah, don't even ask me about that one- and got stuck in TVland for their trouble.”

There was silence. “Now I've heard some tall tales in my day, but that one certainly takes the cake,” Hammond said, dropping his pen without taking a single note.

“That it does...sir.” Jack agreed.

They stood in silence for another minute, sharing awkward glances. “The Ancients could do something like that,” Jacob suggested at last, “Mess with perception, move people around the universe.”

Jack was already shaking his head. “But they wouldn't,” he stated flatly. “Just ask Daniel. They wouldn't move if you lit their asses on fire,” he finished. He looked over at the general and then added, “Sir.”

“I just don't know what to make of this Colonel,” the general admitted, tapping his notes with his pen.

“You're not alone there, sir,” Carter said. Her cheek twitched.

“What am I supposed to tell the Pentagon?”

“Couldn't say, sir,” Jack supplied, though it was undoubtedly a rhetorical question.

Jack turned and walked over to the security monitor someone had set up. It alternated between shots of the Winchesters, each in their separate quarters. He watched it for a moment, his back to the others. The two men were not doing anything interesting, just sitting with the resigned patience of men waiting for the next bomb to drop. But then movement in one of the screens caught Jack's eye.

He leaned closer. There, in the room with Dean Winchester was Sal'ek. He motioned Carter closer. The image flipped back to Sam Winchester's room as she came over, looking puzzled.

“Didn't Teal'c take Sal'ek back to his home planet an hour ago?” Jack asked.

She frowned at his apparent non-sequitur. “Yes, why?”

“Is he back yet?” Jack continued, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“No, sir,” Carter answered. “If you don't mind me asking, sir, what's this about?”

The image flipped back to Dean. Jack stabbed a finger at the screen. “That, Carter. That. The kid told me he could look like anyone.”

“Shit,” she said. She turned around. “General?”

Hammond stood up and was already dialing his phone. “I'll trigger the base lock down,” he said. “Go.”

They moved to the door as one, Carter taking the lead and Jack following. He could hear Jacob behind him as they ran down the hall. And another. And a third, and on and on until they finally they skidded around the last turn.

“Open the door,” Jack barked to the startled SFs.

“Sir,” one of them protested.

“Open the damn door, Sergeant, before I open it for you.” The sergeant complied, and the three of them burst into the room just in time to see Dean pin Sal'ek to the wall in one snake-quick movement.

“The Asgard are their allies,” he hissed. Sal'ek smiled, and it was a creepy smile on his young face. “Well done,” he said, morphing into a relatively ordinary-looking man. “I said you were getting better at this.”

“Or you're getting more obvious. Asking me about Loki. Christ. I'm going to skewer you.”

“Step back, Dean,” Carter said, pointing a zat at the stranger. Jack did the same with his sidearm.

Dean ignored her, as did the other man. “Sure you are. It worked _so_ well for you in the past,” the man said. His entire manner was insincere, and every comment sardonic. He casually reached one arm up and grabbed Dean's, twisting it and shoving Dean to the floor...which he shouldn't have had the leverage to do, let alone the strength.

Carter fired as soon as Dean was clear. The zat apparently had no effect on the stranger. Neither did the bullet Jack sent his way after Carter's shot failed to drop him.

“Tsk,” the man said, turning to face him. He wagged a finger at them. “You're taking away from my big scene.”

Jack was willing to try shooting him again, but found himself unable. He was as trapped- and as immobile as a statue. He couldn't speak, couldn't breathe...but strangely enough, that wasn't presenting an immediate problem.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” the stranger said, turning back to the young man on the floor. “You know, you're a hard man to find. It took me _ages_ to track you guys down. And _now_ you don't want to play?” He pouted for a second, then cocked his head hard to the side, smiling once more. “That's not how it goes, sonny-boy,” he said, smirking. “I'm the director, remember? I make the rules, and you... don't. Capice?”

“You son of a bitch-” Dean began, but he stopped, as if something had cut off his air.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the man said. “Not in front of the lady.” He gave Carter an exaggerated once-over. “Vacation's over,” he said with an eyebrow waggle worthy of the old slapstick routines. He snapped his fingers and Dean disappeared, old-school Star Trek style.

“Well, fellas,” he said to them, “It's been real.” He stopped, as if remembering something. “And you miiight want to check out P2X-3401 in about, oh, a year or two. Tata.” He smirked again and then vanished.

Jack found he could move again. He took a deep breath, and then bellowed. “I'll say it again. What the _hell_ is going on here _?_ ”

Carter looked stunned. She kept glancing around the room, as if expecting to find them hiding behind a desk chair. “I – I don't know. I need to get to my lab.” She turned around and hurried off, doubtlessly planning a whole slew of tests to conduct.

Jacob was still shaking his head and blinking, as if trying to clear his sight. Jack had a feeling Selmak was feeling just as shocked as the rest of them. Jacob managed to regain his voice. “Let's go check on the other guy.”

“Bet you he's 'mysteriously' vanished, too.” Jack said, as they walked down the hall to Sam Winchester's room. Jack nodded to the still-stunned SFs as they passed by.

“I'm not taking that bet,” Jacob answered. “Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to be retired? I don't envy you. What are you guys going to tell the Pentagon?”

“I'm not going to tell them anything, Jacob. When we discover that both Winchesters are mysteriously missing, I'm going to go home and sleep for, like, a _week_ in my nice bed and do my damnedest to pretend none of this ever happened.”

“I don't think you get to do that, Jack,” Jacob said, rueful. “I never did.”

“Ah,” Jack said, holding up a finger, “But you were only dealing with normal-levels of FUBAR. We occasionally deal with levels of weird even they don't want to know about.”

“We are talking about the same organization, aren't we?” Jacob asked, “Because in my day, they loved the weird stuff even more than the billion reports it necessitated.”

“That was before they had to deal with our reports,” Jack said, shrugging.

“Come on, Jack. This is the Pentagon we're talking about.”

Jack stopped in front of the door to Sam Winchester's room. “Jacob, if you want to gloat over how much paperwork you're not going to have to do, go talk to Hammond.”

“Who said anything about gloating? I'm still going to have to report to the Tok'ra high council,” Jacob said innocently. “You're the one claiming the Pentagon isn't going to want to know. “

“Jacob, do you realize just how many times Daniel has died? A lot, that's how many. They don't want any more paperwork on the subject. For this? We'll type up the bare details, and then they'll take one look at it and bury it so deep you'd need a big damn drill to find it.”

“I can't believe that,” Jacob argued, shaking his head, “Even if it's damned weird, it's still a serious breach of security.”

Jack nodded to the SFs and opened the door, then stepped inside. Jacob followed.

The room was short of anyone named Sam Winchester. Jack was not surprised. He turned to tell Jacob his concern was _duly noted_ when the lights started flickering. A breeze kicked up, and the door slammed shut behind them.

“Uh, Jack, did you guys install a new ventilation system and not tell me?” Jacob asked, glancing around and using a deliberate and calm voice. Jack didn’t answer him. Jacob was looking for a reason not to freak out, and Jack had no way of obliging him.

The breeze turned into a torrent of wind, and the lights exploded into sparks and glass. They ducked, shielding their heads from the falling shards of glass. The room was plunged into darkness.

A few seconds later, the back-up lighting kicked on, and for a moment, it threw a bizarre shadow on the wall that put Jack in mind of feathers.

They were no longer alone in the room.

There was a man standing a mere two feet from the end of Jack’s nose. He was of medium height, blue-eyed, and wearing a suit and tan trench coat. He looked decidedly worse for wear. His face was covered in cuts and bruises, like he'd just come out on the wrong end of a bar fight. But in the light, it almost looked like they were fading second by second. A trickle of blood ran down from the man's nose, but he didn't seem to notice it. He staggered even closer- having apparently no concept of ‘personal space’ - and demanded in a deep and hoarse growl, “Where is the angel?” Each word was oddly punctuated. Perhaps ‘intoned’ was more appropriate, Jack’s brain supplied.

“Angel?” Jack repeated. “ _Angel_?”

The man's eyes narrowed. “Gabriel.”

“He's not here,” Jacob managed.

Jack gathered his wits. It took a lot longer than he was going to admit. “Nobody here but us chickens,” he said. He even managed to add some sarcasm.

The man looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. “No,” he agreed. And then he, too, vanished into nothing, leaving behind only the sound of fluttering wings.

Jack looked at Jacob. Jacob looked at him. Jack could only hope his mouth wasn't hanging as open as Jacob's, but he doubted it.

The door banged open and Carter ran in. She slid to a stop when she saw them. She looked surprised to find them there. “Sir?” she asked, then, “What happened in here? You would not believe the readings we were getting-” she started.

“Jack,” said Jacob slowly, “I think I see what you mean.”

Carter turned her head, looking at them both in turn. “Wait- what- ” she looked at Jack, “Sir,” she said again, “What happened?”

Jacob stepped forward and put an arm around his daughter. “Sam, just trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”

She raised her eyebrows at that. _Oh, really?_ Jack could hear her saying.

“I don't recall that line ever working on you, Dad.” Her jaw had set in a stubborn line. She was going to worry at it like a dog with a bone until Jacob cracked.

“Sam, I'm not kidding here,” Jacob responded, “It's already giving _me_ a headache, and I was there. It's given _Selmak_ a headache.”

“Join the club,” Carter answered, with a resigned exhalation. “But now I've got a bunch of anomalous readings to make sense of, so help me out here, Dad. We still have the memory-recall holographic projector set up, you know.”

Jacob sighed. “That won't be necessary, Sam. It's just a whole new level of...” He seemed at a loss for words. “Insane,” he finished at last, blowing out a breath. “Holy Hannah, is it ever.” Carter's lips quirked for a second before she managed to get her serious face back on. “Let me see these readings of yours first.” Jacob said, attempting to placate her. “Maybe we can figure something out without bringing anything more complicated into it.”

Satisfied, she gave a curt nod to Jack and ushered her father out of the room. “When something's not crazy,” Jack heard her say, “Then I'll know to start worrying.”

Jack followed them out, but turned left instead of right, heading back up to the general's office. He found Hammond on the phone, presumably with one of the higher-ups back in Washington, judging from the way he was laying on the assurances and speaking in that calm tone of command he used to emphasize the fact that he was the one sitting in the big leather swivel chair...and not whoever was on the other end of the phone.

“I understand that, Major,” he was saying, “But what your superiors have failed to grasp is that this is why we _follow protocol._ ” Jack was happy not to be the person on the other side of that conversation. When generals disagreed, it was never fun to be the intermediary.

Hammond glanced up and saw Jack waiting outside his door. Jack moved to leave, but Hammond nodded to him and held up a finger. “No, Major.” he continued, “ I don't see it that way. You may tell them to rest assured. I have it firmly under control. I will happily answer any questions the President or the Pentagon may have once we have submitted the reports. Yes, Major. Thank you. You too.” He hung up the phone. “Come in, Colonel,” he said to Jack, shuffling some papers around on his desk.

Jack stepped into the office. “Thank you, sir.”

The general rubbed his temple for a minute. “That was Major Davis,” he remarked, seemingly apropos of nothing. “The Pentagon got wind of the lock down and are asking pointed questions.”

“Ah,” Jack said, noncommittally.

“It does not look good, Colonel. Senator Kinsey has been making trouble for us. I don't have to tell you, Jack, how important it is that we get this resolved as quickly and neatly as possible.”

“About that, sir-” Jack began, rolling up on to the balls of his feet and then settling back down onto his heels. “Well. The thing is, General- and you know how I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but- .I don't think we're going to be so lucky.”

Hammond took a deep breath. “What now, Colonel?”

Jack valiantly tried to keep from making a face, but failed. “Um, well, sir. The thing is- the prisoners... guests... Whatever they are- they've disappeared.”

“The base is still on lock down. If they've escaped, we'll find them,” Hammond said. He sounded like he was trying to reassure himself.

Jack had a fleeting thought that maybe he would have preferred to be in Major Davis' shoes instead. He pressed on. “Yeah. Well, sir. That might be a bit tricky, sir, as they pretty damn literally vanished into thin air- before my very eyes. Or at least, one did and- just going out on a limb here- I assume that's what happened to the other as well.”

“Could it have been the Asgard?”

Jack paused, trying to find someway to believe that. “No, I'm afraid not. There was definitely some beaming involved, but it was more of the Spock variety.”

“Come again, Colonel?” The general asked, a little severely.

Jack sighed. “Star Trek, sir. With glitter and everything.” The general's expression made it clear that he wasn't in the mood for jokes. “I am serious, sir. You remember the crazy story about TVland and some sort of trickster?”

“Yes, Colonel, I do remember that.” Hammond was getting a worried look on his face.

“I'm not so sure they were crazy, sir.” Jack winced a little as he said it.

Hammond blinked at him. “Colonel, are you trying to tell me you actually think that-”

“No, sir,” Jack interrupted. “I have no idea what actually was going on. But I think it's going to be as close as an explanation as we're going to get.”

Hammond leaned back in his chair. “I guess it will have to do. Find some way to put it in your report and I'll pass it along.”

Jack hesitated. “I'm not sure that's a good idea, either.”

Hammond sat up again. “Why not?”

Jack pursed his lips. “Angels,” he sighed.

“Colonel- Angels?" Hammond was beginning to sound exasperated. "Are you talking about the symbols on their ribs?"

“Not exactly. But suffice it to say, I think we're going to need one hell of a cover story for this one. May I suggest...drugs?”  
  
"Jack, are you seriously suggesting that I tell the Pentagon that the entire base was suffering from some sort of drug-induced hallucination?"  
  
"Not the... _entire_ base, sir, no. Just most of it."

General Hammond rubbed a hand over his bald head. “Sometimes I wonder why I didn't just retire while I had the chance.”

Jack glanced back over at the security monitors. They were showing nothing but static, the cameras having been blown out in the power surge. “Me too, sir. Me, too.”

  
 

**The End  
**


End file.
